

















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































THE POLITICAL TRACTS 


OF 


MENENIUS. 


“T 


I ! \ ^ 




1848. 


) > > > > > > ) 


j .> ) 

o i ) ) •g 

“ ^ i 

) > ) > ) 


> ) ) ) 

) ) > ) ■# 5 ^ 

» ) 


J 
V 

) •) > ^ > 


> » ^ 

> * J ] 


f>,« ♦, j 


V 

\ ) ; > ) 
) . > ) ) ) 


i' n ^ ) 


) 


ScconU (IBUttion. 


DUBLIN: 

HODGES AND SMITH, GRAFTON-STREKT, 

BOOKSELLERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 

LONDON : JAMES EIDGWAY, PICCADILLY. 

1849 . 






* 5 ^ 

' ox 


DUBLIN: 

PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 
BY M. H. GILL. 


i‘ * 


c 

c < 
c c 
< c c 
< c 


4 

€ C 

€ 

« < , 


C C 


< « 
t « « 
< C 
C t 


«< * 
( c 
< i c < 


c c 
c 


f 







The Public has here, in a collected form, the 
series of Tracts by Menenius, written during the 
eventful crisis of 1848, and which, though each pub¬ 
lication bears immediate reference to the occurrences 
of the moment, contains, a^ the Publishers have 
been led to imagine, matter worthy of more perma¬ 
nent preservation than the pamphlet-form affords. 

The first of the series—The Game’s up !”— 
was issued immediately after the conviction of John 
Mitchel. The second—“ A Stitch in Time,”—upon 
the 29th of July, when disturbances in Dublin were 
hourly expected. The third—Menenius to the 
People”—appeared soon after the affair of Ballin- 
garry; and the fourth—“Luck and Loyalty”—has 
been published within the present month. 

104, Grafton-street, 

December^ 1848. 







4; -pvr'-^V Ty'- . •' 


J^'’ -.'^'i.-^- ' Y'U:’', V".v,;i"r.:/;' ‘: • ' '• -3 'f., k'.‘Y< 

r v"-!'*'’'^ \ • ••■/)■'-'-^Ji ,^’, -".rfl V •' t ' 


.' /? . ‘ 


::0' -.f ^ 

"lufe-. ... .. ■ V'-.-a ^ 







■■V. 


<» 




rrV-'TJ' .-, •« • •.. i ■ 








■•i -Mn 


» i V., * ^ ' 















'■ V?(^ 




r. I 

'I'lf :••,7 *'•* ■■ 



, / 








I’i -') Jii ' 

‘i»A'l‘’'7fL'nl Ji^r ',’.->1'-*)' lUk 

i''' vfl)V/..-.t£''*!jt^t^'.^ . ,,ri 




7 _ JlW. 7 . ■ 



. 







THE GAME’S UP! 


The Gamers up !—The desperate play of one (let 
charity hope) demented gambler has been played, 
on which his all was staked,—and he is ruined. 

It is little to me or others that he has been the sa¬ 
crifice to his own madness. Our business is with our¬ 
selves. Were we idle lookers-on, without an interest 
in the matter, we might turn from the table, and only 
pity the victim. But it was of borrowed money the 
stakes were principally composed,—his own was but 
a trifle to make up the sum,—it was our happiness 
that was placed at the hazard of the die. 

For him the game’s up. Thank God we can yet 
pj^ove our right to the wealth he would have robbed 
us of to squander, and recover it, to apply it to bet¬ 
ter uses. 

I say his game’s up. He told us what his calcu¬ 
lations were. They have all hitherto proved fatally 
erroneous,—even to the devotion of his friends. 

My business is not with him. God forbid that I 
should inflict one unnecessary pang upon his family 
or his admirers. I pass him over. He is gone from 

A 2 



4 


ninoii" ns,—Lilt lie lias left millions behind liini. 
/ am one of tliem. 

I am an Irishman born and bred,—Irish, mind 
and body,—to the back-bone, and to tlie heart’s 
core. 1 have no interests but those of Ireland. I 
live in Ireland,—I shall probably die in it. With¬ 
out any boast of patriotism, let tlie selfishness whicli 
is inherent in human nature, and which makes all of 
ns most interested in wliat most concerns ourselves, 
be the guarantee for my sincerity. What is England 
to me, with all my associations, my friends, my fa¬ 
mily, my income, my home, in Ireland? What is 
it, beyond the good which I, as an Irishman, derive 
from it? No more than Russia or China. It is no 
advantage to me that Great Britain should be pros¬ 
perous, wise, glorious, good, wealthy, and happy, 
unless I partake of it. No more than that a Howard 
or a Fry sliould go to heaven, while I live and die 
in my sins. Whatever may be the motives that ac¬ 
tuate a British Government, or an Englisli or Scotch 
member of Parliament, in dealing with Irisli affairs, 
I only look upon their acts as they affect me as an 
Irishman. 

I am no theorist, no political economist, no eru¬ 
dite historian, no profound antiquary, no subtle logi¬ 
cian, no sweeping cosmopolite. I am a plain man, 
Avhose business is with the present, in time and 
place. I want to be prosperous and happy, and to 
see those I belong to and live amongst prosperous 
and hap])y too. I want, therefore, to speak common 


sense, if I can, in a way to be intelligible to those I 
am interested for. 

But this is not the way in which the Irish people 
have been accustomed to be addressed of late years. 
Indeed it never was. There is a natural leaning in 
our minds towards the flowers of rhetoric, which 
disposes us to listen rather to magnificent declama¬ 
tion than to dry realities; to take vivid illustrations 
for unanswerable proofs; and to judge of arguments 
rather by the colouring of imagination in which they 
may be dressed, than by the form and substance of 
truth by which they ought to be characterized. 

Ireland is fruitful, yet she is poor; she is popu¬ 
lous, yet she is idle; she is moral, yet she is crimi¬ 
nal ; she is intelligent, yet she is uncivilized;—such 
are the facts under which her counsellors have to 
advise her. Such is the case, to use the lawyer’s 
phrase, “ briefed out” to her advocates. 

I am willing to assume that these advocates are 
disinterested. It makes no difference to me whe¬ 
ther they are so or not. The facts remain the same 
in either case. 

Again, it makes no difference to me what has hap¬ 
pened in past ages. I am born into the world as it 
is now; I take it as I find it. My business is with 
existing people and things. Accordingly, I have 
nothing to say to the old misgovernment of Ireland, 
either by itself or by England, any more than I have 
to do with the sin of Adam. Neither is it anything 
to me if the Union were carried by unrighteous or 


6 


unconstitutional means. That was our fathers’ bu¬ 
siness. If they did not prevent it, we cannot help it. 
We find Ireland afflicted with evils which may have 
arisen, in whole or in part, from English domination; 
and in a condition which may or may not have been 
induced by the Act of Union; but, however these 
things may be, we belong to to-day. We exist no¬ 
minally as a nation, but in point of fact as an inte¬ 
gral part of the British Empire; incorporated into 
its very essence ; governed by the same Sovereign ; 
represented, as its original component parts were, in 
the great Council of the Empire; and identified in 
every possible respect with its being and existence. 
Whatever our opinions may be on questions con¬ 
nected with these facts, the facts remain : we ake a 
part of the British Empire, just as a branch, however 
originally produced, becomes, by process of grafting, 
a part of the tree, having support from the same 
stem, and deriving vitality from the same sap. 

No one attempts to deny this ; but what we have 
been, on the one hand, what we ought to he^ or might 
have heen^ on the other, are the only questions with 
politicians of the class of him whose “ game’s up.” 

The fact I have mentioned, of complete incorpora¬ 
tion with England, obvious as it is, simplifies many 
questions which have puzzled wise heads. Let us 
begin with Koman Catholic Emancipation. Until the 
Union there could be no question that the “ ascen¬ 
dency” of Protestantism in Ireland was an anoma¬ 
lous condition of things. It pointed to a despotic 


7 


system, under which the governing power, tliough 
possibly for ends beneficial to all parties, imposed 
restrictions upon one kingdom within the • empire. 
But, subsequently to the Union, it was the habit of 
many able and well-meaning Irishmen to view the 
condition of the Roman Catholics in Ireland before 
1829, as equally anomalous, because they considered 
this country as still a kingdom^ and as such, delivered 
to the government of the minority. The “ Catliolic 
Question,” since 1800, ought not to have been thus 
looked upon. It was an injperial question, and would 
have been equally so had every man in Ireland been 
a Roman Catholic. If twenty-six millions were the 
population of the empire, then of these eighteen or 
nineteen millions were Protestants. The question 
was one of expediency, not of constitutional right. 

Was it for the benefit of the whole that the excluded 

0 

minority should be politically adopted into the State, 
or not ? It was of no consequence that the majority 
of that minority happened to inhabit Ireland, or that 
in that country the minority constituted the local 
majority. All that the British-Irish Statesman had 
to look to was, whether certain privileges could be 
extended with safety and advantage to a hitherto 
disabled class. 

And here I cannot but lament that a better name 
was not given at the time of the Union to the conso¬ 
lidated kingdoms than that awkward one of “ the 
Great Britains,” which is found only, as far as I am 
aware, on the coins of the realm. It is practically 


8 


unknown ; and “ England” and “ Great Britain” ex¬ 
clude us altogether. “ The United Kingdom” is not 
a name but a designation ; and there is much in a 
name, if not positively by furnishing an argument, 
at least negatively, by taking it out of men’s mouths. 
Ireland is the cry on one side. How weak a response 
would “ the Great Britains” or “ the United King¬ 
dom” be on the other ! 

Well, Emancipation was granted. Under what 
circumstances, and by whom, it is not necessary to 
inquire. Roman Catholics are now partakers of all 
the political privileges of the State. This was to 
have been a final measure. As far back as the year 
1757 the “ finality” of Emancipation was insisted on 
by the Roman Catholic bishops, clergy, and laity, as 
its essential attribute and recommendation. In 1792 
this declaration was confirmed by an oath. In 1805, 
in 1808, in 1812, and in 1826, each petition renewed 
the pledge in plain and emphatic language. The 
pastoral address of the Roman Catholic archbishops 
and bishops of Ireland enforced the declaration 
upon their clergy. The English Roman Catholic 
bishops subscribed a declaration to the same effect, 
in the same year. 

But it was easy to see that it would not be a final 
measure ; in fact, it could not be so. There is no 
such thing as “ finality” in politics. Progress is the 
law of legislation, because it deals with changing cir¬ 
cumstances, and is the act of men liable to be influ¬ 
enced by such circumstances. 


9 


From 1829 to 1844 there was a great develop* 
ment of opinion. There can be no doubt that the 
vast genius and extraordinary perseverance of one 
man did much to stamp upon tlie masses the impress 
of his own thoughts ; but, be that as it may, what 
concerns us now is that certain opinions did become 
prevalent in Ireland, and that certain acts sprung 
from these opinions. Things at last wore a dange¬ 
rous aspect, and strong measures were adopted. And 
this brings us nearer to our own time. 

Let us look at 1844. A few of the leaders of 
popular opinion were brought within the grasp of 
the law, and punished. The effect was immediate 
and magical. A lull ensued ; public confidence was 
restored, and the stage cleared for the trial of social 
experiments. Unfortunately, one or two untoward 
circumstances occurred, to weaken the moral effect 
of what had been done. One of these was the re¬ 
versal, on technical grounds, of the judgment of the 
law on the offenders. Another, and a much more 
injurious one, was a gratuitous declaration of weak¬ 
ness on the part of the Government. But still the 
phenomenon was not the less striking. Ireland was 
placed, for the first time, in a position to put to the 
test the soundness of the imperial views respecting 
her. Every good man ought to have been anxious 
to see the question fairly tried ; for no one pretend¬ 
ing to principle could hold that the happiness of a 
people were better purchased by blood than achieved 
by the peaceful process of economic amelioration. 


10 


Bright, indeed, were our prospects in that year. 
Following close upon the heels of tranquillity were 
the visible development of our industrial resources, 
the silent flow of capital into the country, the ad¬ 
vance of every trade, of every science, of every art, 
that can enrich, ennoble, and beautify life;—and, as a 
consequence, the business of agitation was all but 
bankrupt. Eancour, animosity, were dormant in the 
public mind, or betook themselves to their lairs in 
the breasts of disappointed “ patriots/’ Oh ! had that 
period been one in which the commercial credit of 
England stood on a firm basis; and oh! had it seemed 
good to the Almighty disposer of events to withhold 
His chastening hand from the first fair effort of a 
tranquillized community, what might not have been 
the result, even now ? But to Him it seemed good to 
deny both of these blessings ; doubtless for the best, 
though inscrutable, purposes. I am now only stating 
facts; and, in point of fact, England—the world— 
was^ at the period in question, on the brink of great 
calamities ;—one social, in a monetary crisis, unex¬ 
ampled in recent times ; the other natural, in the fai¬ 
lure, all over the world, of an article of food, which, 
in Ireland, formed the subsistence of the great bulk 
of the population. 

Either of these calamities must have affected the 
experiment materially. The occurrence of both to¬ 
gether rendered it altogether fruitless. Bankruptcy 
had begun to paralyze the energies of England just 
at the moment that famine commenced its fatal work 



11 


upon the millions in Ireland. This was an unex¬ 
pected opportunity for the crest-fallen school of agi¬ 
tation. Organized as the system had long been by 
the exertions of one man, who in his declining years 
vainly sought, or seemed to seek, to restrain it to 
purposes consistent with the maintenance of order,— 
it needed little additional effort to revive it in its 
strength, now that physical destitution stared the 
masses it controlled in the face. The old machinery 
was repaired, furbished up, and set to work in good 
earnest; for it could not be unmade, and was always 
at hand to be applied as those who commanded it 
might direct. It needed less of effort to revive the 
system, because now there was a real, substantial, 
tremendous evil present. No oratory was necessary 
to show men that they were starving. This was a 
great fact. Now, then, was the time to make use 
of it. 

I have no wish to enter at large into the history 
of the new school of agitation. It would do no good, 
and it is well known. The Empire (an awkward 
word) was, in her extremity, called upon to support 
the starving millions of Ireland. So she ought, if 
she could,—for Ireland was part of herself. It was 
natural to expect that, in a united council, those 
most immediately interested in the part visited with 
calamity should seek for the greatest possible share 
of relief, and that those less so should be anxious to 
reduce it to the least possible effectual amount. This 
is human nature, and cannot be complained of It is 


12 


the case of every deliberative assembly. The actual 
sum afforded will be the medium between the claims 
on the one hand, and the concessions on the other. 
But it must not be forgotten that the financial re¬ 
sources of the Empire happened to be, at that mo¬ 
ment, crippled beyond precedent,—a circumstance 
which must also naturally have controlled the gene¬ 
ral estimate ; so that, viewing the embarrassments 
of all parties, there was nothing surprising if the 
means actually placed at the disposal of the country 
needing relief proved inadequate to the purpose. 
Neither was it very surprising that the Legislature, 
in its hurry and perplexity, should have chosen a 
mode of relief in some measure unsatisfactory and 
uneconomic. Assuredly it is not to be charged 
against it, that it should have acted thus unwisely 
from any motive but a mistaken one. For it would be 
clearly against its interests to have expended money 
in any other way than that most advantageous to all 
parties ; and, as I have already said, self-interest is 
the great actuating influence with all of us. 

A good deal, however, was done. The number 
of rations issued daily, free of cost, in 1847, was, in 
May, 777,884 ; June, 1,923,261 ; July, 2,342,000. 
The average number of persons daily employed in 
relief works of drainage and of roads was, in Octo¬ 
ber, 1846, 114,000 ; November, 285,000 ; Decem¬ 
ber, 440,000 ; in January 1847, 570,000 ; in Fe¬ 
bruary, 700,000 ; and in March, 734,000. The 
amount voted by the Imperial Parliament for Ireland 


13 


during tlie famine, in various shapes, was, in round 
munbers, £10,350,000. No trilling sum, to say no- 
tliing of the unexampled profusion of private charity. 
But all this was not enough to prevent thousands 
from dying of hunger and destitution ; thousands 
more from sinking from competence and indepen¬ 
dence to pauperism and the poor-house. It, no 
doubt, was not enough to accomplish this ; but, as 
I have said, it did a good deal, and in the right di¬ 
rection. Believe me, it is no easy matter to feed 
a foodless nation. The extraneous nature of the 
supply renders its operation less efficacious than it 
might be. It is unnatural and unprecedented, and, 
therefore, not easily managed. To conduct the pub¬ 
lic money as food to remote districts, is a difficult, 
complicated, and expensive process. Nature has 
intended that food, or what is bartered for food, 
should be grown or fabricated on the spot where it 
is to be consumed, and by those who have an inte¬ 
rest in its being done profitably. Hence, in the ar¬ 
tificial substitution, instances must necessarily have 
been numerous of unequal distribution,—of districts 
penetrated into slowly, or inadequately,—and, as a 
consequence, of appalling local destitution, of fearful 
individual suffering ; and all this, even had the sup¬ 
ply, as originally voted, been equal to the demand. 

Now I come to the use the new agitators made of 
all this. They had their facts at hand. Starvation 
inadequately relieved ; cases of death innumerable, 
before or without relief England, a country prover- 


14 


bial for its wealth (which is always magnified in the 
eyes of the ignorant), appearing in the attitude of a 
niggardly alms-giver. An early history, which pre¬ 
sented an inferior nation by the side of a superior ; 
and, of course, the usual amount of injustice exer¬ 
cised towards the one by the other. 

With these facts they had to deal as best suited 
their own objects. They had only to tell the people 
that it was England that starved them ; that she was 
rich enough to feed them ; that it was common jus¬ 
tice that she should feed them ; and that history 
showed that she never had, and therefore never 
could have, the wish to feed them ; they had only to 
say this to be believed,—for the great paradox of 
starvation renders anything credible. 

They did tell them all this : and there is their 
guilt. Men should be particularly cautious how they 
mystify people who are suffering. It is no excuse, 
scarcely ,an extenuation, that they might have had 
what they considered the ultimate good of the suf¬ 
ferers in view when they did so. They took advantage 
of their extremity to influence their understandings, 
and tampered with a judgment helplessly confided 
to them during the deadly struggle with famine. 

Herein lies the sophistry of the anti-English party 
now. They lay natural evils to political causes ; 
tliey assume that, if social evils are not immediately 
got rid of by legislation, the constitution under which 
they exist must be bad ; and they lay all evils, social, 
moral, political, and natural, at the door of England. 


15 


Herein lies their guilt; that, building on these so¬ 
phisms, they hurry matters forward in the present 
alarm and excitement of the country, and urge the 
people to act decisively, and in steps not hereafter to 
be retraced. 

Well, I have now arrived at the present year. 
Things looked ominous enough in Ireland at its com¬ 
mencement. The licentiousness of the public Press 
was unexampled. The public mind was disturbed 
and excited: it resembled the uneasiness of the brute 
creation before an earthquake. Suddenly, France 
broke up with a crash ; and the other kingdoms of 
Europe were split in all directions to their centres. 
This was an unexpected piece of good fortune ; and, 
as people are apt to let out secrets in moments of 
triumph, it was now plainly intimated by the leaders 
of public opinion in Ireland, that “ Eepeal” had all 
along meant “ separation,”—that a “ local parliament” 
meant a “ republic,”—and that “ reform” meant “re¬ 
volution.” This was a great key to the past,—it is 
likewise a great guide for the future. 

Incendiary harangues and writings now breathed 
an immediate appeal to force ,—not to obtain the Ke- 
pcal of the Union, be it remembered, but because it 
had not been already obtained. It was to be a war 
of retribution.^ and, therefore, of extermination. 

Simultaneous with this appeal was a further deve¬ 
lopment of the views—or tactics—of the party. I 
must call it the i because I hold that, for the pre¬ 
sent, and 2 '>ractically, “Old” and “Young” Ireland 



16 


are synonymous terms,—synonymous, as far as im¬ 
perial interests are concerned, though distinguished 
from each other as to the means by which these 
interests are to be overthrown, and the use that is 
to be made of the victory. It was no longer the 
Roman Catholic and Protestant party in Ireland; 
it was tlie British and the Irish party ; that is, the 
party which was to make the election of Great Bri¬ 
tain as its country, and that which was to choose 
Ireland as such ; and every one was dubbed a 
“ Saxon’^ who preferred to support British connexion. 
This was a well-devised modification of previous dis¬ 
tinctions. Any one can see what it meant, and how 
it was calculated to serve the objects of its inventors. 

As a proof that the movement party was in ear¬ 
nest, it inculcated and adopted military preparations. 
The people were exhorted to arm ; and their leaders 
provided themselves and others with such weapons as 
they could procure. Instructions were given through 
their journals in the art of defence and attack ; 
and drilling was recommended and put in practice. 
Whilst the leading journal of the movement endea¬ 
voured to blind the Government by boasting that all 
its proceedings would take place in the face of day, 
the conspirators were making their effective arrange¬ 
ments in the strictest privacy ; and it was only 
through the faithlessness of some of themselves that 
the executive was made aware of the amount and 
imminence of the danger, and of the real tactics in¬ 
tended to be pursued. 


17 


Prompt measures were taken to avert—or meet— 
the impending struggle. The metropolis was placed 
in a state of defence, and the military strength of the 
provinces was reinforced. The effect has hitherto 
been to overawe the conspirators and their party. 
The Lord Lieutenant had a difficult part to act. He 
was placed, with the charge of the peace of the 
country upon him, in the midst of parties who stood 
in complex and varying relations of hostility or 
amity to the Government he belonged to. Certain 
classes and certain creeds were to be looked upon 
with a favourable eye; certain others were not to be 
recognised as classes or creeds at all. In addition to 
this, the Corporation of Dublin, on whom the pre¬ 
servation of the peace of the city ought perhaps, in 
the first instance, constitutionally to have devolved, 
had manifested too vacillating a spirit to be safely in¬ 
trusted with it. Hence, in a difficulty which he felt 
to be insurmountable, the Lord Lieutenant took his 
own course,—the course which the conviction of 
every man who really wished to see order preserved 
felt to be the true one,—he placed the defence of 
the city in the hands of the military authorities, and 
even went so far as to reject the assistance of those 
who proposed to co-operate with them. 

Every one knew what this meant. There was no 
rank or class of persons in Dublin who could, as 
such, be depended on. But there was a creed which 
, could ; and this was a fact which, though Lord Cla¬ 
rendon and every one in the community, disaffected 

B 



18 




or otherwise, felt to be indisputable, he could not 
breathe in any one of the numerous answers he re¬ 
turned to the addresses presented to him during the 
crisis. He could not do so, because at the same mo¬ 
ment the Government with whom he acted were 
adopting the policy of assuming, with a view to ul¬ 
terior objects, the loyalty of that very denomination 
of persons who had been here tacitly and practically 
stigmatized with disaffection. 

Whether this was the necessary effect of the posi¬ 
tion of the country, and of Ministers, and of Europe, 
it is not my business to inquire. I only state facts; 
and every one knows that such was in fact the 
arrangement of the chess-board at the juncture in 
question. 

This firm policy of Lord Clarendon of course pro¬ 
duced dissatisfaction in proportion to its wisdom. It 
was too bad that, when every little petty state in 
Europe had its revolution, Ireland should not be 
allowed to try one of its own. France seemed to pre¬ 
sent some hopes of assistance, and accordingly she 
was sounded, but without effect. Nothing was to 
be gained in that quarter. Efforts were made to 
provoke Lord Clarendon to strike the first blow, but 
with equal success. His Excellency knew that, even 
if the mienacing attitude of things might, in other 
times, have justified an aggressive movement, it never 
would do at this period of European excitement to 
give a handle to other nations to lay hold of, as if an 
act of tyranny had been committed. But, seeing that 


19 


the outrageous license of the platform and the press 
was urging the ignorant and sulfering multitude be¬ 
yond the control of reason, the Government, with his 
consent, determined on recommending the extension 
of a British law to Ireland, deepening the character 
of the offence in the latter country, and applying a 
'mitigated penalty in both. The change was accord¬ 
ingly effected ; and the ringleader of the disaffected 
party, fortunately, was the first to render himself 
amenable to the new law. 

I have no intention, as I said before, to deal with 
that person’s case, as it concerns himself;—by and 
by I will say a word about one or two circumstances 
connected with it, as they concern others. 

Lord Clarendon’s strong position dissatisfied the 
party. In Dublin they laboured, with inconsistent 
insidiousness, on the one hand to tamper with the 
fidelity of the soldiery and police, on the other to 
hold up the one and the other force to the execra¬ 
tion of the populace, as thirsting for the massacre 
of their fellow-subjects. They even affected to feel 
terror at the aspect of such an armed force in the 
city—an amusing piece of grimace, since they per¬ 
fectly well knew that it rested with themselves to 
keep that force, were it ten times as great, perfectly 
innoxious, and that, like law itself, it could only be 
a terror to evil-doers. The corporation went the 
length of assuming a similar attitude of terror in 
, presence of the Lord Lieutenant; these sober citizens 
knowing full well tliat, irrespective of ulterior objects, 

B 2 


20 


their plain interest was to keep themselves, their 
lives and properties, under the protection of Her 
Majesty^s troops, who are, as British soldiers, their 
own countrymen, and are at least as well content to 
inarch out to reviews in the Park, and lounge about 
our streets, as to have to face the ten-feet pikes lying 
in bundles in the different secret depots through the 
city, ready to rip them up. 

Assuming these and such other expostulators as 
not to belong to the party, their conduct seems 
utterly inexplicable. Men of property, with every¬ 
thing to lose, and no means of self-defence, while the 
city swarmed with excited thousands armed with 
rifles and pikes, to desire to see Her Majesty’s troops 
marching out of Dublin, Her Majesty’s ships sailing 
from the harbour ! Troops, which had never done 
harm but to the common enemies of our country ; 
ships, which had never fired a shot, except in defence 
of the liberties and possessions of the very men who 
now wished to have it believed that they were trem¬ 
bling in their vicinity ! No effrontery—and some 
tolerably strong corporate instances of that quality 
are on record—could exceed that of a body of weal¬ 
thy citizens of the second city in Her Majesty’s do¬ 
minions going up to her representative, and gravely 
telling him that the presence of her forces by sea 
and land filled them with alarm—for their lives and 
properties ! 

But Lord Clarendon, like Gallio, “ cared for none 
of these things.” Fortunately for the good and the true 


21 


men of Ireland and of Great Britain, he pursued the 
safe and calm course he had from the first struck out 
lor himself Perfect passiveness on the one hand, so 
tliat trade and credit should be as little as possible 
disturbed ; perfect readiness, on the other, to meet 
any onset which the enemies of order might be 
tempted to make. In other words, a strong defen¬ 
sive position; for exactly in proportion as you 
strengthen your post, do you lessen the chances of 
its being attacked. Thus Lord Clarendon’s policy 
was designed, and has proved hitherto, peaceful 
policy; and it is the enemies of peace, or they whom 
they delude, who alone quarrel with it. In thus vin¬ 
dicating the policy of the Viceroy I must not be un¬ 
derstood to be his champion. “ The Castle” has no 
cliarms for me. I am a citizen and an Irishman ; 
and approve only of what benefits me and my coun¬ 
try. Far less do I want to fight the battles of Go¬ 
vernment. They have committed too many mistakes 
to put me under much obligation to them ;—but the 
question is not between this and that government. 
It is between the government we have, and anarchy, 
— that is, between inconvenience and disaster,—be¬ 
tween embarrassment and ruin. 

Looking coolly at the state of things in this coun¬ 
try, it may fairly be concluded that, as regards the 
immediate hopes of tlie disaffected party, “ the 
game’s up.” Lord Clarendon was openly defied by 
an individual who was willing to test his prowess in 
his own person. The gage hus been accepted ; the 


22 


tilt has been run ; the challenging party has been 
arrested, convicted, sentenced, and transported; and 
yet things remain as they were ; the entrenched force 
at its post, the attacking one still hesitating before it. 

Is this attitude to continue for ever ? 

Before I answer that question I will, as I promised, 
say a word about the “jury packing” system, as it is 
called; since, it seems, it is in this particular that 
the late trial has lost its “ moral effect.” I must speak 
plainly. I am no lawyer. 1 may make technical blun¬ 
ders ; but it will not do to wrangle about words and 
forms. When life and liberty are concerned, still 
more, when the tranquillity and happiness of a whole 
country are involved, it is the spirit and not the 
letter the honest man will look to. 

Trial by jury was originally a trial by twelve 
neighbours. But it was controlled, modified, and 
altered from time to time by Statute, as expediency 
pointed out; and now, in a case such as that I am 
considering, includes two findings : one by a grand 
jury of twenty-three, on an ex parte indictment; the 
other by a jury of twelve, in view of the whole case. 
These latter jurors are called from the panel pre¬ 
pared by the sheriff, and must be good men and 
true, “ above all suspicion.” 

Now, that men should be “ above all suspicion,” 
within the meaning of the law, it is clearly necessary 
that there should be some standard, some criterion, by 
wliich to ascertain the fitness or unfitness of the party 
to be placed on the panel; for which reason a discre- 


23 


tioii is left to the sheriff. The very existence of a qua¬ 
lification shows that some line must be drawn. What 
is the juror called upon to do? First, to take an oath. 
AYell, he must, therefore, be a person who is supposed 
to consider himself bound by an oath in a court of jus¬ 
tice. He ought to be one professing a religion which 
holds the obligation of an oath, voluntarily incurred, 
as paramount to every consideration ; and its viola¬ 
tion, under any circumstances, perjury. He must be 
one, moreover, who is supposed to consider himself, 
the prisoner, and all his fellow-subjects, amenable to 
the laws according to which the trial is to go for¬ 
ward, and to hold himself bound to do his part, in 
the strict meaning of the oath he has taken, “ well 
and truly to try” the case before him, dismissing pre¬ 
conceived notions altogether from his mind. He 
must be one, finally, who has no known sympathy 
or partiality for the prisoner, or those associated 
with him in the acts which form the ground of the 
indictment. From all these objections the juror must 
be free, before he can be called “ a good and true 
man, above all suspicion.” 

Now, how is a sheriff to act in this country at the 
present juncture ? Principles of disaffection to the 
British government are notoriously spread far and 
wide:—principles which strike at the root of British 
law, as not being binding on Irishmen; and at the foun¬ 
dation of plain morality, as admitting excepted cases, 
in which some ulterior good may justify the imme¬ 
diate dereliction of a voluntarily undertaken obliga- 


24 


tion. He finds a pre-existing bias, not only regard- 
ing the prisoner in charge, and the party to which he 
belongs, but affecting the very tribunal before which 
the case is brought, and the Constitution under 
which that tribunal exists. He sees, moreover, that, 
whether it be universally held or not, the doctrine 
at all events is very extensively acted oh by persons 
professing the religion of the majority in this coun¬ 
try, that what might, abstractedly taken, be consi¬ 
dered a crime, may, under peculiar aspects, and with 
reference to correlative circumstances,become either 
innocent or even praiseworthy. The code of mora¬ 
lity he observes to be not a positive, an unchange¬ 
able one, but to be modified by various influences. 
In point of fact he has witnessed the common spec¬ 
tacle of jurors professing that religion, and in other 
respects of unimpeachable integrity, entering the 
box with the avowed determination of returning a 
verdict, not according to the evidence which they 
swear to have regard to, but in conformity with what 
they consider a higher duty, the interest of the pri¬ 
soner, or the “ welfare” of their country. With this 
predetermination they do not hesitate to take the 
oatli, which in its plain and ordinary meaning prolii- 
bits any forejudging of the case, or the consideration 
of anything except “ the evidence” to be laid before 
them. They liave determined to disregard that oath, 
not because they would willingly incur the guilt or 
disgrace of perjury, but because they hold other con¬ 
siderations paramount to that obligation, and enter 


25 


upon it with a secret proviso in favour of their, it 
may be, conscientious views. 

The sheriff knows all this. He has two courses 
to pursue, either to return a panel indiscriminately, 
or to exercise a discretion. 

In Mitchel’s case the circumstances were pecu¬ 
liarly strong. The country was extremely disaf¬ 
fected. This disaffection spread through all classes, 
and extended to a virtual repudiation of British 
Government, law, and authority, in Ireland. The 
whole Constitution was rejected, and, of course, the 
particular contrivances devised under that Constitu¬ 
tion for the purpose of administering justice, lost 
their efficacy with the rejection of the Constitution 
itself. It only depended on the amount of religious 
obligation that might happen to attach to an oath 
in the breast of a disaffected individual, how far it 
might bind him. There was no moral or social 
obligation in it. And as to the religious obligation, 
it is pretty clear tliat in the particular creed in ques¬ 
tion it too often floats and fluctuates with the cur¬ 
rent of circumstances. 

A “Mitchelite,” I do not hesitate to say, was, and 
is, according to the spirit of the British Constitution, 
manifestly inadmissible on a jury in a political case. 
Look at Mitchefs own maxims. Britons (that is, 
the friends of English connexion in Ireland) are 
usurpers and aliens; British kiwis a hideous juggle; 
British judges are sanguinary ogres; British gover¬ 
nors are butchers. Mitchefs avowed intention origi¬ 
nally was to refuse to acknowledge the jurisdiction 


26 


of Her Majesty’s Courts, or to attempt any defence; 
though every one has seen how signally he failed to 
act in accordance with that voluntary announcement. 
Could any one who subscribed to such principles be 
properly placed upon the panel in this or any other 
case of the kind ? If he were, would an Attorney- 
General be doing his duty if he did not peremptorily 
challenge him ? 

A Roman Catholic,—I speak it with regret,—is 
likewise, as such, unsafe as a juryman in political 
cases in times like these. I do not mean to assert,— 
God forbid that I should,—that the objection holds 
against every individual professing that religion. On 
the contrary, I believe that a vast majority of the 
more enlightened portion of Roman Catholics would 
repudiate with abhorrence the idea of taking an oath 
with a reservation. No ; the disqualification lies 
here; that an oath is not necessarily binding ; that 
the violation of an oath is not necessarily and irre¬ 
deemably perjury. The possibility of an excepted 
case, and of absolution, creates an uncertainty which 
leads a sheriff, who has to make up his panel of men 
“above suspicion,” to avoid Roman Catholics where 
he can ; and, in like manner, leads the Crown, in a 
case like the present, to prefer the certainty of reli¬ 
gious and moral amenableness in the Protestant to 
the chance of its existence in the Roman Catholic. 

And who were those who were retained upon 
the jury? Was there an attempt made by any one 
to charge them with more than this, that they were 
not Mitchelites, not Roman Catholics? These ne- 


gative crimes formed the sum of their guilt. Not 
being Mitclielites, not being Roman Catholics, they 
acknowledged the authority of the Court, took the 
oath in its obvious meaning, and applied themselves 
to the case before them as if it were a calculation in 
their counting-houses, or a coroner’s inquest. They 
were retained because they acknowledged the autho¬ 
rity of British law in this country, and suffered them¬ 
selves to be unreservedly bound by the oath it pre¬ 
sented to them. That which the rejected might have 
submitted to only as the yoke that was to admit 
them close enough to the vehicle to kick at the par¬ 
ties inside, was, by the retained, submissively adopted 
as harness by which the car of justice was to be moved 
forward. Has any one attempted to insinuate that 
the jury in this case would not have given the pri¬ 
soner the benefit of any reasonable doubt or diffi¬ 
culty that might have arisen ; or that they would 
have agreed upon their verdict upon any less irre¬ 
fragable grounds than perfect proof? No one has 
dreamt of such a thing. The case was so plain that 
no defence was set up. The prisoner’s counsel jus¬ 
tified, instead of extenuating or disproving the of¬ 
fence,—if indeed he did not seek to disprove the 
felony by establishing a case of high treason. How 
did he justify the offence ? By repeating t\\e dictum 
of an Irish House of Commons, that “none but the 
Kimx, Lords, and Commons of Ireland could make 
laws to bind the Irish people,” as applicable to the pre¬ 
sent order of things. In other words, by insinuating 


28 


that the existing laws were not binding on himself, 
his client, the jury, or any one else ; and, conse¬ 
quently, that the Courts which administered those 
laws were not legal tribunals. It was as if the fact 
came in question, whether the Sessions-house where 
the trial took place, stood in a particular spot or not; 
and when twelve plain men were empanelled to try 
it, counsel should seek to influence their verdict, by 
pointing to the daily and yearly motion of the earth, 
and the progress of the solar system. In Mitchels 
case, taking the law and constitution as fixed points, 
you could not but convict him. Question the sta¬ 
bility of these, which Mr. Holmes did, and a jury 
might liave been dispensed with altogether. But a 
juror who would be willing to be deceived by such 
an argument, was clearly not fit for his duty ; and 
hence those persons, not “ above suspicion” on this 
score, were removed at once. 

The panel was fairly chosen, and the jury was 
fairly constituted, considering the question morally. 
It becomes a grave question whether, in this country, 
a form should be retained at all, calculated to give a 
handle to the enemies of justice to impeach the in¬ 
tegrity of those who administer it. Trial by jury, in 
criminal cases, such as it now exists, is not suited to 
Ireland. The moral and political evil is too widely 
spread to admit of the question of guilt or innocence 
being safely left to any twelve men taken at random, 
especially when tlie timidity, corruption, or tenets of 
one of them can render fruitless the integrity of the 


29 


reiTiaining eleven. Jurors in the provinces are consi¬ 
dered rather as cliampious entering the lists to defend 
a cause,'than investigators of truth. The obligation of 
the oath is scarcely thought of: the point is, will this 
man or that stick by his friends? Will he be staunch 
to “ his country?” For the commonest and plainest 
case of assault, or murder, is almost uniformly made a 
sort of political “faction-fight,” in which the question 
of morality is quite lost sight of in the party struggle. 
And now, when the disease has spread and become 
more malignant, can a jury of unprejudiced men be 
procured at hazard in any class of the community? 
Is it not to be anticipated that out of every dozen 
men you see, one at least may be found impenetrable 
to the arguments of British law, and vowed to what 
he calls “ the cause of Ireland,”—that is, to refuse a 
verdict in a British Court of justice against any crimi¬ 
nal for any public offence? Does not the very atrocity 
of the threats launched against those jurors wholately 
did their duty in the face of popular clamour, prove 
that the jury-box is considered a political ordeal ra¬ 
ther than a piece of legal machinery? No imputation 
of a verdict found against the evidence was thrown 
out. No: it is simply that a verdict was given against 
the man, as representing a party. It was a verdict 
in favour of British—that is. Imperial or Anglo-Irish 
—law, and against the subversion of all existing law 
and authority. 

I do not like to propose remedies, any more than I 
do to give advice, for I have no authority to back me. 
But if any remedial attempt could safely be made in 




30 


so important a matter as trial by jury, I think that 
a stronger and more explicit test might be proposed 
to the jury, which should give, first, to the parties 
concerned a preliminary power of sifting the princi¬ 
ples of the men to be placed upon it; and secondly, 
to the public a recorded exposition of the general 
principles of the juror, to judge of his verdict by. 
This should be accomplished by means of an oath, 
which every man should be obliged to take in open 
court when called to serve on a jury, in addition 
to that now tendered to him. This oath should 
be framed so as to include allegiance; acknow¬ 
ledgment of the laws of the United Kingdom as 
binding on liege subjects,—in particular, admission 
of the legal jurisdiction of courts of justice; a solemn 
admission of the obligation of an oath, in its true and 
obvious meaning; and an abnegation of the doctrine 
that any earthly authority can prospectively or retro¬ 
spectively release from such obligation, or absolve 
from the sin committed in violating it. 

Oaths of abjuration, it may be said, can have little 
effect, because the authority you seek to make a man 
abnegate upon oath, has power to absolve from the 
obligation of that oath. 

There was some wisdom in our fathers, however. 
They knew that the explicitness of an oath proclaimed 
the perjury of him who violated it. And many na¬ 
tures which would creep out of an obligation through 
a loop-hole, would shrink from bursting through it 
in the face of the world. 

But the wisdom of modern policy has been to 


31 


knock off oatli after oath, as if they were links of a 
chain, instead of tests of freedom. He tliat fears 
oaths such as these, confesses himself a slave. 

All that the oath I propose would insure is impar¬ 
tiality —a qualification on the part of a juror which 
is tacitly assumed by the British Constitution to exist 
in every case, and a want of which would be suffi¬ 
cient, in the eye of the Constitution, to render any 
juror ineligible. 

If, in addition to this, the great principle of the 
Scottish law were adopted in Ireland, and a certain 
majority of the jury empowered to return a verdict, 
much would have been done to restore confidence 
in legal tribunals, and restrain the machinations of 
those persons who trade upon the defective jury sys¬ 
tem on the one hand, and the expedients by which 
its defects are sought to be avoided on the other. 

Trial by jury, strictly analogous to the British, 
cannot exist much longer in this country. You can¬ 
not try the disaffected by a jury of the disaffected; 
just as you cannot guide a balloon in the air, because 
you have nothing but air to work upon. There 
must be a “purchase,” as the mechanic would call 
it, to bring any force into play. The argument will, 
I know, be met, as it has been met, by telling me that 
if all are disaffected there must be good reason for 
it, and a radical change has become necessary: but, 
in the first place, the evil would be nearly as great 
in practice though the disaffected should be but one- 
twelfth of the whole community; for so slight an infu- 



sioii of these principles through the classes eligible 
as jurors Avould be siilFicient to paralyze the arm of 
justice in all its motions, as long, at least, as unani¬ 
mity is essential to a verdict. And again, even if 
the great majority of British subjects inhabiting this 
island were indisposed towards British Government 
and laws, still, as I have already remarked in speak¬ 
ing of the question of Roman Catholic Emancipation 
after the Union, the local majority here is the actual 
minority of the Empire, just as a majority of Irish 
members might be, and are, a minority of the house; 
and the general welfare of the empire might demand 
that the disaffection of that local majority should 
be disregarded as necessitating a general change of 
measures; its collective wisdom controlling the more 
partial judgment—or delusion—of the disaffected 
portion. Indeed, it is in the nature of things that no 
one subordinate portion of a complex body politic 
could be expected to be perfectly contented with 
its condition, if, from any circumstances whatever, it 
should find itself in a less prosperous state than other 
portions. Because it would, if left to itself, of course, 
seek to gain an equality with the circumjacent por¬ 
tions, by reducing them until the general level was 
uniform,—that is, at their expense; and any arguments 
or efforts of their’s to resist this, even though they 
should appeal to the general advantage of the whole 
community, would be set down to selfish motives, 
and denounced accordingly. 

It is precisely thus with Ireland. It would, like 


33 


a drowning man, seek to save itself, by pulling its 
preserver under water. Great Britain, with humane 
caution, seems to avoid the fatal grasp, in order that 
she may the more effectually render assistance, the 
success of which involves the safety of both. Ireland 
is less rich, less prosperous, less contented than Great 
Britain. But she is part of the empire. The empire 
cannot be expected to make her more rich, prospe¬ 
rous, or contented than it finds her. All that it can 
do is to place her in a condition to become so ; to give 
her every advantage consistent v/ith her subordinate 
position, so that the part shall not be greater than 
the whole ; to speed intercommunication of thought, 
things, and persons, so as to diminish the irregulari¬ 
ties complained of;—to assign limits to her preten¬ 
sions on the one hand, and to respond cordially to 
her claims on the other. 

And this brings me to the future. Are the atti¬ 
tudes of menace by Ireland and defence by the em¬ 
pire to continue for ever ? 

Look what it is that Government and its support¬ 
ers wish to maintain. They do not deny that Ire¬ 
land is distressed, disorganized, and unhappy. But 
they deny that existing England is the cause of this. 
They say that the question is with the present and 
the future, not with the past. They assert that they 
are, in point of fact, the peace-makers and peace-pre¬ 
servers. Peace has been preserved hitherto, and 
peace it is their object to preserve. They argue that 
the aggression is with the other side. If a position 

c 


34 


of strengtli is taken up, it is to repel attack, not to 
cover hostilities. If the law has been had recourse 
to, it was, in the provinces, to check outrage, in the 
capital, to discourage rebellion. 

Charged with ruling by a strong hand, they state 
that they do so, not merely for the sake of preserv¬ 
ing the public peace, but for the far more important 
purpose of permanently benefiting the country and 
its inhabitants. Though war is in itself so great an 
evil, that burdens must be oppressive indeed before 
the contingent results of a recourse to arms can coun- 

O 

terbalance the miseries that alternative inevitably 
brings along with it, yet even if a revolution could 
be accomplished bloodlessly, and wdth safety to pub¬ 
lic credit and public morality, they argue that the 
change must be for the worse,—for, notwithstanding 
the language of the disaffected leaders, there is a 
superlative even to our comparative wretchedness. 
They do not deny the existence of wretchedness, 
but they recognise its causes : some of them in the 
irrevocable past; some of them arising from long- 
continued agitation ; some of them providential; but 
none of them to be necessarily removed by a sweep¬ 
ing political change. They state furthermore, that 
they occupy an entrenched position now against the 
feelings of the physical majority of the country, for 
the twofold object of preserving the predominancy 
of property and intelligence over brute force, and 
of maintaining the true interests of the masses against 
an acute excitement and fever, just as in actual fever 


35 


the strong man is curbed of his will, in order that 
he may be able to exercise his rational will on his 
restoration to health. For they hold that there is 
such a thing as political fever, with its progress, de¬ 
lirium, crisis, and decline : that that fever is infec¬ 
tious, and is now aggravated here by infection from 
abroad: that it is dangerous, but that it is curable ; 
and that the cure must be brought about, or at least 
assisted, by the skilful application of remedies, not 
administered in obedience to the diseased demands 
of the patient, but in conformity to the rules of sci¬ 
ence, and according to the dictates of humanity. 

They allege, moreover, that in a country such as 
our’s, but lately brought forward in the scale of civi¬ 
lization, and still short of the high standard of some 
other nations, the opinions of the masses are in a 
great measure moulded on those of a few persons, 
who, adopting some popular watchword, assume to 
be their leaders, and, having first instilled certain 
notions into their minds, of which they had never 
dreamt before, afterwards represent themselves as 
their mouth-piece, and put forth the very ideas which 
originated with themselves, as if they derived their 
importance from the numerical weight of the masses 
who have adopted them. They argue, that these prin¬ 
ciples are to be weighed, first, on their own merits, 
and, secondly, as they may derive force from the cha¬ 
racter and capabilities of those who have originally 
-propounded them ; but are by no means to be con¬ 
sidered sound, because they have been adopted:—and 

c 2 


36 


in this latter respect, regard is to be had to the ripe¬ 
ness of the people to listen to any doctrine which 
holds out golden hopes,—to their real sufferings, and 
consequent discontent,—to their excitability of tem¬ 
perament,—to their imperfect education,—and to 
other causes which, partly justly, partly unjustly, 
dispose them to quarrel with those to whom they 
are socially subordinated. 

This much they state, in justification of their pre¬ 
sent attitude. 

What is the case of the attacking party ? 

First, they go back to the past. No prescription 
runs against their arguments. “ The song begins from 
Jove.” “ Ireland was conquered, planted, and go¬ 
verned by England.” Well, so it was. “ Ireland had 
a Parliament.” I deny it. Ireland nevek had a Par¬ 
liament; no, not even in 1782 ; no, not even in 1792. 
It is one of the monster delusions of the day to dream 
that Ireland ever had a Parliament, in the sense in 
which the party now uses the word. It possessed a 
council, selected exclusively from an ascendant mi¬ 
nority, and on which England conferred greater or less 
powers of legislation from time to time. The very 
circumstance of England having previous to its ex¬ 
tinction enlarged those powers, is evidence of its hav¬ 
ing the power of diminishing or annihilating them ; 
and this is not a Parliament. I, for my part, look 
upon the whole “ carriage of the Union” as a solemn 
mockery, got up to conceal the fact, which was, that 
the British Parliament willed the extinction of the 



37 


local legislature, and preferred having its own consent 
to openly exercising the power it possessed. The pom¬ 
pous declaration of this Irish Council, that “ none but 
the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, had power 
to make laws for Ireland,” was of as much significance 
as the “ for ever” so frequently adopted in solemn 
Acts of legislation, and as frequently violated. The 
Irish “ Parliament” was a council, introduced by the 
English into a conquered country, for certain limited 
purposes, and extinguishable at pleasure. Of what 
avail was the declaration of independence of the Irish 
Parliament by the British, if it was independent al¬ 
ready ? And, if it was not, was not the independence 
resumable, notwithstanding the formal “ for ever” ? 

No—a Parliament —a self-existing, paramount, 
constitutional council of the nation, never existed in 
Ireland ;—or, if it did, it was the magnum concilium 
we have heard of lately. If it did, it never could 
have had its powers limited or enlarged by another 
council, once they were settled ; it never could have 
annihilated itself, or been annihilated, except by the 
conquest of the nation. We were, up to 1800, a 
colony, not a kingdom; and as such our true “ Con¬ 
stitution” lay within the Constitution of the parent 
St^te. The fatal mistake was allowing the country 
to be mistaken in its true position. This was policy, 
but it is an exploded and a past policy ; and we are 
now, since the Union, for the first time, a free portion 
of a free empire. 

“ Ireland prospered under her Parliament” (so 
called). So it did, to a certain extent, for its agricul- 



38 


tural produce, imperfectly developed as sucli re¬ 
sources were, obtained the advantage of a high mar¬ 
ket in war time,—and the industry of the North was 
as conspicuous as it is now. Dublin was a brilliant 
city ; though facts show that the beggary and desti¬ 
tution of the operative classes were frequently as 
appalling as they have ever been since. 

But hicts again show that, with the exception of 
the “ west end’’ world of Dublin, Ireland has conti¬ 
nued to advance since the Union, in spite of the 
systematic discouragement to fair experiment which 
an unceasing agitation has afforded. The spread of 
statistical information has, happily, rendered this de¬ 
monstrable, so I shall not now take the trouble to 
enter into details. It has advanced, though the ter¬ 
mination of the Continental war reduced the prices 
of agricultural produce so largely as in many cases 
to throw the farmer helplessly into the power of the 
landlord—or the demagogue. It has advanced (and 
this is the strangest fact of all) through the period 
of local famine and monetary difficulty; advanced, I 
mean, in every particular not directly affected by the 
famine and the state of the money-market. 

“Ireland is in a state of slavery since the Union.” 
I deny it. I abhor slavery. I would not live in a 
country of slaves, though I were myself the master. 
Why should Britain enslave Ireland, when she eman¬ 
cipates the West Indies? For actual and virtual sla¬ 
very are the same in principle. How has an enslaved 
country been lately defined ? A country in which 


the people are prevented from making laws for 
themselves. What is a country ? A kingdom, or 
republic: Once Northumberland was a kingdom ; 
Connaught was once a kingdom too. But Northum¬ 
berland, Connaught, Ireland, are no longer kingdoms; 
they are integral portions of an empire, the people 
of which do, through their representatives (the only 
possible way) make laws for themselves. If you con¬ 
sider that Ireland was a nation or a kingdom in an 
absolute sense before the Union, then perhaps it 
might be argued with some show of plausibility that 
the people were in a sort slaves ; nay, some might 
hold that until 1829 there was a tinge of slavery in 
the condition 'of the Roman Catholics. But he must 
needs be an arch democrat who would designate by 
that strong name the state of things under which the 
lesser part of one whole is simply subordinated in de¬ 
gree to the greater, while within that subordination 
all the constituent parts possess equal rank, privi¬ 
leges, and immunities throughout the entire, and an 
intercommunity of interests and of rights. Complete 
and perfect “justice,” as it is called, can never, per¬ 
haps, be done to every part in any earthly commu¬ 
nity. There will be, now and then, an over-readi¬ 
ness or an over-slowness to accede to local demands, 
to the prejudice, in both cases, of the rest, and of the 
whole, which is most benefited by an exact distri¬ 
bution of advantages. Hence just causes of com¬ 
plaint will frequently arise. But so long as the com¬ 
plaining people are a free people, that is, so long as 


40 


they have a constitutional mode of laying their 
alleged grievances before the general council of the 
nation, so as to have them investigated, and either 
redressed, if they prove real and remediable, or dis¬ 
missed if they do not,—so long are they bound to 
abide by that decision, to submit to that authority ; 
and if they refuse to do so, they are guilty of the 
offences ranging from disaffection to treason. 

“ Ireland should never trust England more, or 
cordially accept any boon from her, because she first 
enslaved, and then ill-treated her.’’ This is the spi¬ 
rit of the “ deadly feuds” of the border clans. It is 
a spirit which, as it is contrary to the plainest incul¬ 
cations of Christianity, so it is opposed to the whole 
tenor of enlightened policy. It is unworthy of a 
civilized community to acknowledge any such actu¬ 
ating principle as hereditary enmity. Let each ge¬ 
neration answer for its own acts, but let not the sins 
of the fathers be visited on the children, beyond the 
powder of expiation or atonement. Legislation, indeed, 
ought equally to reject such a spirit. Hence the in¬ 
justice of making the landlords of to-day responsible 
for the landlords of a past era. Were such a spirit 
general there would be no hope for nations. Ilapine, 
oppression, wrong, is interwoven in the early history 
of every people: if the memory of these were to be 
perpetual, as controlling influences in subsequent 
relations, no such thing could exist as international or 
even neighbourly alliance. England consists of the 
fragments of seven kingdoms, overrun by depreda- 


41 


tors, and conquered by a foreign power, which has 
become in process of time incorporated with the na¬ 
tive population. Ireland, in like manner, is com¬ 
posed of the debris of several petty kingdoms, over¬ 
run by foreign hordes, invaded and conquered by 
a foreign power, which has also become, though in 
a less degree, and at a later period, incorporated 
with the inhabitants of the country. 

In Ireland, as in England, this dominant power 
adopted the policy of ascendency, and that by a na¬ 
tural law, which has always caused a more civilized 
community, coming in upon a less civilized, to domi¬ 
neer and tyrannize to a degree irreconcileable with 
any principle of justice or policy. England found 
Ireland at least four centuries behind it in civiliza¬ 
tion. It is not fairly to be charged against it now 
that it followed the course universally pursued in 
those rude ages, and sought rather to subjugate and 
enslave the conquered country than to elevate it to 
a participation of its own rights and privileges. It 
was long before this policy was abandoned; never 
wholly until 1829. But every step in modern times 
was in the right direction. The progress of opinion 
was working its course, and Ireland was becoming 
free by the revolution of mind. It was thus that it 
was thoroughly emancipated at last. And the proof 
that, at all events, Ireland is not in a state of sla¬ 
very since the Union, is furnished by the fact of its 
having achieved its own complete emancipation, with¬ 
out violating the Constitution,—that is, an email- 


42 


cipation wliicli, by the very fact of its having been 
obtained, proves itself to be a misnomer, and the 
alleged “slavery” a modification of freedom. 

If the despotic policy of past England is to be vi¬ 
sited on the head of present England, then England 
has a right to take vengeance on herself, and that 
not only for old but recent transgressions. The 
hanging of Eaimtleroy for forgery was a piece of 
barbarity, for which the country must atone, even 
now. Yet the arguments our agitators use in de- 
noimcine^ England for ^‘En^lish misrule,” as far as it 
is past^ would go this length. 

Ireland has made great political advances since the 
Union,—another proof that she is not in a state of 
slavery. She has found a voice in the council of the 
Empire which has been heard and responded to. 
Her interests have been consulted and furthered:— 
if not as far as some of her self-constituted leaders 
would affect to wish, still an advance has been stea¬ 
dily made up to the present hour,—and this is in¬ 
consistent with a state of slavery. 

Since the passing of the Relief Bill, amongst the 
measures carried having reference to Ireland are 
those relating to parliamentary representation, the 
registration of votes, Irish Church revenues, muni¬ 
cipal corporations. National Education, pauper re¬ 
lief, Maynooth College, &c.; all purporting to remove 
some existing ground of discontent on the part of 
Ireland. If England were mistress, and only looked 
to her own separate interests, she might perhaps have 


43 


acted differently—and no one could have blamed her. 
If Ireland were the predominating power, would she 
be as tender of English interests as England is of 
our’s ? We leave it to the breasts of the popular 
orators of the day to answer. 

As I have already said, let us look at what the 
Government of theUnited Kingdom and the Imperial 
Parliament are now doing for us, not what bygone 
governments and parliaments have done or omitted 
to do. If they deal fairly and freely with us, we 
have no right to throw in their faces wliat their fa¬ 
thers or grandfathers may have done. The greatest 
effect past misdeeds ought to have, in the most wary 
breast, would be to suggest suspicion before the act, 
but it should never influence us in the reception of 
measures which we can scrutinize for ourselves. A 
sullen rejection of the outstretched hand of reconci¬ 
liation and amity may suit the interests of those who 
thrive on agitation, or the vanity of those who can 
endure martyrdom itself for its celebrity, but can 
never be justified before God or man by any bygone 
differences, the actual parties to which have long 
quitted the scene. 

All this goes on the assumption of comparatively 
recent wrongs; whereas I by no means concede that 
the gradual, even tardy, relaxation of an established 
system of ascendency ought to be looked upon with 
the same vindictive animosity as the primary impo¬ 
sition of such a code might be. The great bulk of 
mankind entertains a prejudice in favour of what 


44 


exists. Conservatism is chronic, reform is paroxys¬ 
mal. That things are, is, in the eyes of the multitude, 
a justification of their being so; witness the continua¬ 
tion to our own times of West India slavery. An 
exclusive policy, which would have been universally 
deemed unrighteous were it to be newly applied, it 
might be held innocent, at least, if not expedient, 
to retain, where it was found constituting a part of 
the existing order of things. The stern ferocity of 
the new school of agitation is wholly disproportioned 
even to the wrong it complains of. Not to grant 
ncAV and exorbitant demands the moment they 
are made, is surely insufficient to justify unqualified 
hatred and unmeasured resentment. I hold no ar¬ 
gument to be stronger against the principles and 
policy of the present movement than the dispropor¬ 
tion between the passions exhibited and the exciting 
cause, as it is set forth, clear of declamatory amplifi¬ 
cation, by the leaders of that movement themselves. 

Well, so much for the quarrel. Now, what terms 
does the aggressive party propose, on the reception 
of which it will draw off its troops ? Even these 
are not settled. “ Eepeal !” says one. “ Separation !” 
cries another. “ A republic !” shouts a third. “ Ba¬ 
nishment of the Saxon !” vociferates a fourth. Ex¬ 
tirpation of heresy !” whispers a fifth. The notes are 
so discordant that a meaning is scarcely to be ga¬ 
thered from them. 

Let me see whether I can collect anything intelli¬ 
gible from the outcry. 


45 


Eepeal !” What does that mean ? A definition 
has been sought for the term for twenty years, and 
is not yet found. O’Connell tried to frame a new 
Act, to which he attached the insidious name ; but 
he never for a moment suggested the simple repeal 
of the old one. He knew that that would never do. 
He knew that he dared not restore a Protestant le¬ 
gislative body to Ireland. He knew that it would 
never do to re-enact the farce of an Irish Parliament, 
in which the dominant minority were the sole repre¬ 
sentatives, and were so far from being truly the re¬ 
presentatives of anything but themselves, that they 
were purchased over in a mass to resign their exist¬ 
ence for ever; that purchase serving the double pur¬ 
pose of proving their corruption and opening the 
way for the establishment of the true liberty of 
Ireland. 

“ Eepeal,” however, was a name which did good 
service to the cause. What was really sought for 
from the first, even admitting Eepeal to be the end 
and not the means, was something very different. 
But it was well known that agitation for such a pur¬ 
pose might be considered unconstitutional, while 
meetings to petition for the repeal of an Act of Par¬ 
liament were clearly legal; hence what was osten¬ 
sibly put forward was the repeal of a certain Act, 
though at the very time the negative was altogether 
superseded by the positive portion of the proposed 
, measure, which was nothing less than to raise Ire- 


46 


land, for the first time, to the rank of a nation, at 
once separate and free. 

The Government of the day was greatly to be 
reprehended for not detecting this stratagem. Since 
it has been more than intimated by successive Go¬ 
vernments that Repeal agitation is, in spirit, uncon¬ 
stitutional, it necessarily follows that what is sought 
for must be considered by them to be so also. It 
was easy, therefore, at the outset, to have discrimi¬ 
nated between the name and the substance of the 
subject-matter of the agitation, and to have dealt 
with the latter summarily, and as it deserved. 

But the name was left as a cloak and as a shield 
to hide and protect the imposture. It is now too 
late to remove it. I am content to expose what it 
conceals. 

Repeal means, as it always meant, a new consti¬ 
tution FOR Ireland. 

As to the form of that constitution, repealers al¬ 
ready differ. My course will be, instead of inquiring 
into the avowed or concealed objects of this or that 
person, now figuring prominently in the business, to 
follow, as nearly as I can, the current of probabili¬ 
ties, and endeavour to trace the progress of future 
events by the indications of existing circumstances, 
and the general nature of the human mind. I do so, 
not because I wish to quarrel with any honest well- 
wisher to his country because he happens to be san¬ 
guine ; but because, on a calm review of the past, and 
on calculations for the future grounded on that re- 


47 


view, I differ from most of those persons who now 
so enthusiastically revel in anticipations of the glo¬ 
rious destiny of Ireland, should their efforts prove suc¬ 
cessful ; and because, moreover, I believe enthusiasm 
to disqualify a man in a great degree, from making 
sound guesses at contingent events, as excitement of 
any kind directly interferes with the mental pro¬ 
cesses. I will readily be believed when I say that 
if my sober calculations had brought me to the same 
results as these brilliant day-dreams, I should with the 
truest joy adopt them ; because it cannot be denied 
that they present something far more grand and mag¬ 
nificent as the destiny of ray country, than anything 
I have been able to realize to myself;—and this is, 
of course, my chief concern. But events do not 
occur because they are prefigured in the imagina¬ 
tion ; though they sometimes do, as they are fore¬ 
shown in the theory of the philosopher. 

I will suppose that “ Kepeaf’ is carried, either by 
capitulation, sap, or storm. A constitution is framed 
for Ireland, by which she shall have her two houses 
of Parliament, with the Queen of Great Britain as 
Sovereign. But the laws passed in the United King¬ 
dom must be deemed, for the present, valid in the 
newly-constituted assembly, which would have the 
effect of continuing the franchise as it at present 
exists, and admitting Roman Catholics to sit in both 
houses of Parliament. A new schedule of counties, 
cities, boroughs, &c., must of course be framed ; and, 
in the Lords, the question of spiritual peerages be 
settled in the first instance. I scarcely see how this 


48 


could be amicably adjusted without either admitting 
the whole Komaii Catholic hierarchy, strengthened, 
perhaps, by a band of mitred abbots and priors, as in 
former times, to seats in the House of Lords ; or by 
excluding the Protestant bishops, whose ranks, even 
in case they are admitted, are now thinned by the 
operation of the Church Temporalities’ Act. Indeed, 
I cannot believe but that “ Eepeal,” by an amicable 
arrangement, must involve as a preliminary the utter 
and total extinction of the Established Church in 
Ireland, Avhich would have the effect of excluding 
the bishops from the House of Lords altogether. 

Suppose a Parliament, constituted in some such 
way, to assemble in Dublin,—and this is taking the 
most favourable view of the case, for it assumes that 
the new constitution is granted by the Imperial Par¬ 
liament, and received by the Irish Nation, without a 
struggle ; one great point is gained,—members are 
on the spot, out of reach of Imperial influence or 
control, within reach of the Irish populace ;—would 
Imperial interests be long regarded ? 

The House of Commons would, in all probability, 
from the first, contain a majority of Eoman Catholics, 
in the proportion, probably, of 5 to 2. It would con¬ 
tain all those persons who have been lately so cla¬ 
morous for a “ Domestic Parliament,” as well as the 
new Kepublican party. 

We can almost fancy we hear the echoes of the 
first debate. Have we a “ Domestic” Parliament as 
long as the Crown—in itself possessing the power 
of nullifying all our Acts—rests on the head of a 


49 


foreigner ? All tlie arguments so much in vogue of 
late years, against “ Saxon” usurpation, would now 
tell with renewed strength against this “ monstrous 
constitutional anomaly,”—an “ alien,”a “stranger,” an 
“ absentee,” “ under foreign influence,”—and this, 
whether the Sovereign should act at all times through 
a “ Saxon” Lord Lieutenant, or occasionally vary the 
scene by vouchsafing a visit in person. 

Plere are the elements of strife already at work. 
But suppose the Commons had agreed upon some 
strong measure calculated to get rid of this anomaly, 
there are still the Lords between them and their 
purpose. Are there no questions relative to the 
constitution of that house v/hich would demand an 
early notice ? Not to dwell on republican” abhor¬ 
rence of all hereditary distinctions,would it be long 
tolerated that those Peers, whose titles are asserted 
to have been the prices of their votes on the Union 
question, should be suffered to retain seats in a house 
called into existence by the repeal of the very Act 
which was the foundation of their nobility ? But the 
exclusion of Union Peers would suggest a right to 
go back and examine the origin and tenure of digni¬ 
ties, which might without much difficulty be ex¬ 
plained into a precedent in other matters. Surely, 
too, those Peers who enjoyed English or Scotch 
honours, would be at least called upon to make their 
election. Well, if the two houses came into collision, 
^everybody knows which must go. And, the obstacle 
once removed, the House of Commons stands face to 


D 


50 


face Avitli tlie Sovereign. Nor will this attitude of op¬ 
position be found without precedent in Irish history. 
From 1169 to 1641 every insurrection was avowedly 
pointed against the domination of England; not di¬ 
rected to the lower object of a claim of a constitution, 
or a charter, or extended popular rights; but, where 
anything more defined than retaliation or rapine was 
to be traced, aiming to supplant the territorial supre¬ 
macy of the British Crown. 

By what title does Queen Victoria sit on the 
throne of these realms ? By Acts of Parliament, 
passed in both kingdoms, at a time when the Eoman 
Catholics were under political disabilities ; which 
Acts interrupted the legal succession, for the purpose 
of excluding Roman Catholics. Were it not for 
these Acts she would never have been our Sovereign- 
But who would ? There is an individual in exis¬ 
tence, who is the legal heir to the British Crown 
(and, of course, to the Irish), and who would now 
wear it, but for the circumstance of his ancestors and 
himself being Roman Catholics. The Queen is only 
a statutable Sovereign. Are these Acts to bind an 
independent Parliament in a “ Catholic” country? 
Here is a grievance ? 

The Sovereign is now at issue with her king- 
dom” of Ireland. Which is to yield? Neither will 
submit without war. The “ separation,” now so 
openly talked of, must then inevitably take place, at 
least pending the struggle. And, let it be recol¬ 
lected, great additional powers would be afforded to 


51 


Ireland for a contest with England, by her possessing 
a Parliament of her own. England would then engage, 
not with mere lawless insurgents, but with a system 
needing only an executive to be the government of 
the country,—having, to a great degree, its resources 
at command,—presenting a show of authority,—and 
assuming, with some truth, to represent a nation. 

The constitution will, therefore, have by this time 
taken a “ republican” form. The Lords must have 
been annihilated at the very commencement of the 
struggle, as cramping the measures of the Commons; 
the franchise must necessarily have been extended ; 
and, finally, a provisional government must have 
been appointed to act, 

“ Death to the Saxon” will naturally be the next 
cry,—if not literally, at least politically interpreted. 
The neutral Anglo-Irish as well as the English must 
go, or join the movement. They must suffer, whether 
they go or not, if they have previously expressed sen¬ 
timents hostile to the new state of things. The prin¬ 
ciple of “ Ireland for the Irish” will be acted upon by 
the mob, as “ France for the French” has lately been. 

But long before this another voice will have been 
heard ,—the cry of the poor for bread. The open 
throat of famine will howl nearer and nearer, as trade, 
commerce, manufactures, and agriculture lie idle, 
awaiting peace. The absentee may have returned 
home, but this will not feed and employ millions. Now 
come the acreless representatives of native families, 
clamouring for an inquisition into forfeited titles, the 
records of which at this moment exist at Maynooth. 

D 2 



52 


Who shall refuse tlieir demand?—a demand, backed 
by the hungry populace on the one hand, and the rent¬ 
paying farmer on the other ; the former conceiving 
that the more thoroughly property is unsettled the 
better chance they will have in the scramble ; the 
latter believing that the annihilation of existing 
leases, under such circumstances, must leave him 
where he is, either as proprietor, or at such a rent 
as he may think proper to pay. 

It may be worth while here to show the farmer 
how utterly he mistakes his position, if he indulges 
in any notions of this kind. His title is derived 
immediately from the lessor, whom he gets rid of. 
Legally, then, he should go with his landlord. But 
he considers that the effect of this new confiscation 
will be to leave him where he is, only relieving him 
from his rent. AYhere, then, are the claimants to 
these estates ? And, if they be forthcoming and have 
their claims allowed, will he not stand in the position 
of an occupant without title ? I am no lawyer, as I 
have already said, but this seems to me to be com¬ 
mon sense. 

Suppose, however (which must ensue), that pro¬ 
perty, including land, is ultimately redistributed by 
the new Government, in order to carry out the spirit 
of their own revolution and answer the clamour of 
starving millions, who will otherwise by physical 
force overwhelm everything but themselves ; how 
would the redistribution affect the small farmer ? It 
could not better him. He never could expect more 
than he has. The distribution of land to relieve 


53 


pauperism must be infinitesimal. But could he, un¬ 
der any probable scale of distribution, retain it? Cer¬ 
tainly not, unless saddled with burdens, in some shape 
or other, as grievous at least as his rent was ; and, re¬ 
collect, even to his own farm he has only a sort of 
primd facie claim ^—he has no rights not even tenant- 
right, on his side; he must take what is awarded him. 
Butin the interim, before all this laborious machinery 
of redistribution is brought into play, what security 
has he in his farm? His lease is gone; any lawless 
combination may turn him out of possession, and 
then behold him as a simple claimant atlaw of lands 
to which he has no recognised title whatever. Will 
it not be an enviable position when he finds himself 
without an acre, a shilling, a lease, or a title, his 
whole hope resting on a claim at law or in equity^ in 
revolutionizing Ireland! 

There is one further phase in the imaginary pa¬ 
norama. Keligion will not shrink from her altars 
because they reek. 

Observe how studiously this element of strife is 
kept out of sight now; I mean kept out of sight in 
the theories and orations of the new school of agita¬ 
tion. The republicans are without a bias on this head. 
Every man shall believe as he likes. In point of fact, 
however, religion has drawn the visible line of differ¬ 
ence. I need not show how: those who have read 
so far will understand me. 

Now I believe that, however this topic may be 
kept in the back-ground during peace, and before 
blood has flowed, the war, when it once begins, will 


54 


inevitably be a religious war. And, moreover, I be¬ 
lieve that, when once the elements of strife have be¬ 
gun to work, they will never permanently settle down 
again until a Roman Catholic monarchy be estab¬ 
lished closely approaching to despotism. 

Observe the position Protestants, clergy and laity, 
would hold in Ireland thus circumstanced, and com¬ 
pare it with that Roman Catholics now occupy. 
They would be a minority, and the majority would 
be the dominant class. In other words, they would 
be at the mercy of that class. But, worse than this, 
they would not be recognised as a Christian commu¬ 
nity by Roman Catholics, nor would their clergy be 
considered as such; whereas Protestants do consider 
the Romish as a Christian Church, and its clergy as 
priests. Protestants would be—as they now are— 
simply heretics. 

Under such a despotism “ extirpation of heresy’^ 
may possibly be attempted. 

And this is the place to give a word—and one word 
is enough—to a party which, of all others. Hook upon 
as the most infatuated and unintelligible. ImeanPro- 
testant Repealers. What it is these good, easy men ex¬ 
pect, is more than either I—or they—can say. If they 
believe now, that Repeal itself could stop the open 
mouths of famine, rapacity, and treason, that it would 
prove even a sop to this Cerberus, they are of all 
men the most credulous. A delirium such as this is 
almost too strong to be argued with. They stand ‘in 
the midst of a breach, up which one force is rushing, 
down which the other is aiming, and tranquilly ex- 



55 


hort the defenders to admit the storming party, who 
will be quite content to enter, and no more ! With 
easyphilosophy they would have Repeal for their own 
objects, and disregard the clamour of those who want 
it for their’s. They hope to figure in an Irish Parlia¬ 
ment, without considering what that Parliament will 
do; and forgetting that their petty projects for some 
fancied exaltation of the national tone, will be the 
first to be run down and trampled upon by the rush 
of a revolution. These high-minded visionaries, who 
are unable to see the signs of the times, on account 
of the loftiness of their own aspirations, may antici¬ 
pate what all must admire —the bright picture lately 
drawn by the venerable advocate, of this country ex¬ 
isting happy,prosperous, and contented for centuries, 
with its domestic Parliament, under a common Sove¬ 
reign with England! 

We have arrived at a persecuting despotism, in 
the hands of Roman Catholics:—and this is the last 
of the speculations in which I will indulge. 

I know that any one who pleases may reject any 
or all of them. Their soundness never can be 
proved before the event. But if people object to 
them as being too bold and startling, I answer, first, 
that they appear so principally because the sequence 
is, in a projection like this, immediate, not gradual. 
If the perspective were behind us, as history, instead 
of before us, as speculation, there would be plenty of 
people ready to cry: “ How perfectly naturally all 
these events followed each other!” “ How was it 

that they were not foreseen and guarded against ?” 

L.of C. 


56 


Though wonders, it is said, never cease, it is won¬ 
derful how soon surprise ceases when the feeling 
has been too heavily taxed ; and, moreover, any 
one unforeseen change renders further change the 
more probable ; it opens the sluices of innovation. 
And I answer, secondly, that instances are not 
wanting in modern times of events just as miracu¬ 
lous following each other almost as rapidly as they 
could be enumerated. 

In France, on the outbreak of the first Revolution, 
seven weeks were sufficient to annihilate the autho¬ 
rity of the peers, and ten, virtually, that of the crown. 
On the 4th of May, 1789, the States General, com¬ 
posed of three estates, met at Versailles. By the 
19th of June the “ National Assembly’’ had usurped 
their whole authority in its own body: and on the 
13th of July, its resolution, in the teeth of the royal 
declaration, that “ the Assembly persisted in all its 
former decrees,” effectually and at once established 
its independence of the crown. 

I say I will go no farther in speculations, though 
the subject is far from being exhausted,—I mean, far 
from having arrived at the line at which calculation 
lapses into conjecture. It would be easy to sketch, 
by anticipation, the effect of the throwing back upon 
Ireland of the two-fifteenths estimated as her contri¬ 
bution to the State, and charging her with her own 
ordinary and extraordinary expenses:—as to paying 
the interest of her debt, that, of course, would be out 
of the question. But not even confiscation would 
square her accounts. Without capital or commerce, 


57 


manufactures or resources, without army or navy, 
bullion or credit, has she that within her which could 
feed her population in peace, not to speak of supply¬ 
ing them in war ? And this, when the strongest and 
richest part of Ireland will be against her ? Could 
she cope with the prosperous and indignant North, 
bearing down upon her in her extremity, and backed, 
if need should be, with the best blood of England 
and Scotland ? Eecollect, the only bond of union 
which could exist between the North and the rest of 
Ireland, would be republicanism ; and this, if I am 
right in my surmises, is not the form the Government 
will ultimately assume. 

I might, by a fair process of analogy, prefigure the 
expedients to which a Government would be driven 
to raise supplies. In France, during this year, the 
capital of the nation diminished one-half in three 
months. What would any property be worth here 
in the same time ? and dare we place a limit to the 
assignats which would be had recourse to, within 
view of bankruptcy ? 

I might—I wish I could avoid it—deviate into the 
side-paths of this open road, and speak of objects some 
consider of less import. The private episodes of as¬ 
sassination, the local outrages, the gratification of 
long-cherished revenge, where distress has been sys¬ 
tematically goaded into rage,—the oppression of the 
weak,—the slaughter of the helpless,—those name¬ 
less horrors which hang upon the track of civil war, 
which would raise this war above all others in hideous 

—all crowd the path on either side. 


pre-eminence, 



58 


I will not go farther into speculations, because I 
believe that “ the game’s up” with the revolutionists. 

But I will exhibit what is not speculative in the 
future, in case the present disaffection pass into rebel¬ 
lion. Ireland cannot, contend single-handed against 
Great Britain. That is allowed on all sides. She 
must seek and obtain succour from some one or 
other of those “free nations” she loves to praise and 
seeks to imitate. Ireland will not only be the scene 
of a civil war, but the theatre of a general one. 

Have the eloquent gentlemen who paint her future 
in such bright colours ever hinted at this? Hostile 
British Ireland must have, on the one hand, garrisons 
(now indeed hostile, for she has made them so) occu¬ 
pying positions through the country,—and on the 
oi\\e\\ friendly armies—in other words, hosts of fo¬ 
reign troops—quartered upon her. Let Belgium say 
wliether it is an agreeable thing to be considered a 
convenient battle-ground, or to have even an amicable 
force of strangers billeted upon a nation. The reply 
would probably be, “ defend me from my friends !” 

How would the foreign commissariat be supplied ? 
Will allies fight without being fed, or paid, or both ? 
—allies, bound by none of the civil laws which ren¬ 
der an armed force only a terror to evil-doers, and 
insolent and rapacious in proportion as they witness 
the inferior condition of the mass of the people, and 
begin to feel the effects of the national poverty. 
Would an American army long sympathize with what 
to their eyes would appear barbarism and beggary ? 
Would a French force long forego the refinements 



59 


and civilization they were accustomed to for a shi¬ 
vering encampment on an Irish bog ? They never 
would put out a hand for Ireland except for tlie pur¬ 
pose of embarrassing England; and even this, once 
before, and under nearly similar circumstances, was 
not enough to prevent them from showing their 
contempt and disgust of everything they witnessed 
here, and their distaste for a service in which neither 
credit nor amusement were to be found. 

What a bright picture Ireland would present as a 
“ theatre of war !” Bristling brigades marching over 
the poor man’s corn and meadow, and small hopes 
from an action of trespass ! His potatoes in his cor- 
ran, his pig in \\h fail, seized upon by a whiskered 
trooper, who talks some gibberish to him, and throws 
down a coin as the price of what he takes—at his 
own valuation ! Swaggering roysterers inspecting the 
shrinking charms that grace the seclusion of private 
families, with the license of a “ protecting force !” 

Not a word of all this is imagination. This is a 
part of the picture which must be realized. Is the 
honest farmer, the plain tradesman,—nay, the labour¬ 
ing peasant, with all his distress, prepared for this? 

Well, the strife must have an end sooner or later. 
I must confess, as an Irishman, I do not like to think 
of the consequences to myself and to my country, 
even under the best of circumstances,—I mean the 
subjugation of the rebels, the expulsion of the foreign 
force, peace once again in Ireland. We are thrown 
back centuries,—we are a disgraced portion of the 
empire,—we almost force that empire, for its own 




60 


sake, to restrict us in some of our liberties. We 
have lost more, perhaps, than we can ever regain. 

But still we shall belong to, and form a part of, 
the great empire of Britain, and in such a relation 
our wounds may be healed sooner than we can now 
dare to hope. But, under less favourable circum¬ 
stances, having “gained our point,” having shaken off 
British connexion, having cleared our country of fo¬ 
reign troops cutz), where shall we find ourselves? 

First of all, in famine and fever. Not a famine 
from which, as a providential visitation, the poor 
man can appeal to the charity of man and the mercy 
of God ; not the fever of privation, in which every 
hand is ready to minister a remedy, every voice to 
say a word of comfort: but the famine of the spend¬ 
thrift, the fever of the debauchee. 

Next, in the position of a small and resourceless 
nation, without capital, commerce, or manufactures; 
within arm’s length of an ejected co-partner of all 
the benefits of our insular position, now justly in¬ 
censed, armed with all the animosity which such a 
struggle must have given birth to, and ready to use 
that arm—one of the mightiest upon earth—either, 
like a mesmeriser’s, to benumb and paralyze our best 
energies, or, in its strength, to smite the four corners 
ol the land continually. We must always be a small 
power, and, having to deal with the greater powers 
of Europe, must of necessity, in case of a general 
struggle, fall a prey to some one of them. Such 
has been invariably the case in European politics. 
We must keep watch and ward night and day ; 


61 


always be bristlinfy with defence on the side of Ens:- 
land; and be content to resign tranquillity and com¬ 
fort, and all that makes life sweet to the virtuous 
and the good, for that thing, that phantom, called 
Liberty, which we seek through fire and sword, and 
which really exists on our hearths under the name 
of contentment, and in our fields in the furrow of 
industry. 

It is more than any metaphor or license can jus¬ 
tify, to call us. Irishmen, slaves. Only the other day 
a period was given us: we were told, if certain things 
were not done at a certain time, we should be slaves 
for ever, and deserved to be so. Well, the time is 
past; the certain things were not done;—and yet I 
cannot persuade myself that I am a slave, or that any 
one of my neighbours is so. Men cannot be slaves 
without knowing it. As long as I have my body and 
my mind, my heart and my conscience free, I shall 
laugh at him who would persuade me that I am a slave. 
The French are slaves now, if you please; so are the 
Russians; so are the Americans, in a degree, for they 
dare not even think contrary to what is called “Public 
Opinion,” though it be according to their consciences: 
but to tell me that an Irishman is a slave, who, 
if he have any stake in the country at all, makes his 
own laws through his representatives; who exercises 
his religion as he pleases; who can claim defence in 
war and support in peace; who has his rights ac¬ 
knowledged and his wrongs redressed by impartial 
tribunals; who is even permitted to strike terror by 
demonstrations of force, as long as their object is 


02 


ever so faintly equivocal; who, be he the humblest 
peasant who ever turned the sod, may rise througli 
every gradation of advance, to the loftiest station in 
law, divinity, the arts, sciences, or literature, the 
State has power to confer, without a single political 
obstacle in his way;—to call, I say, a citizen thus cir¬ 
cumstanced a slave^ transcends all the limits of am¬ 
plification, and becomes simply ridiculous. 

The worst of all this movement is, that it is in the 
wrong direction; against the current of sound philo¬ 
sophy, and, as far as I can see, contrary to the de¬ 
sign of nature and Providence. 

It will be necessary to raise ourselves up a little 
from the level of the present, to gain a clear view of 
this. Civilization, as it advances, lias a natural ten¬ 
dency to draw not only man and man together, but 
community and community, by the thousand cords of 
mutual benefit, precisely as science, in its advance, fa¬ 
cilitates their physical intercourse. Man w^as origi¬ 
nally one family. It wfill be one family again, when 
it has reached its maximum of civilization. It was 
while men were ignorant and unenlightened that they 
held aloof from each other. Those distinctions which 
divided them when intercourse of thought and per¬ 
son was difficult or rare, become gradually oblite¬ 
rated by the friction of intercommunication, which 
drives its wheels over the impediments of barbarism, 
and will finally break down all barriers less exten¬ 
sive than those that enclose the human family at 
large. With our island, in particular, each year 
makes this more manifest. At the time of the Union, 



63 


less than half a century ago, we stood at a distance 
from the sister island more vast, for all the purposes 
of life, than America does now. Related as we were 
even then, in language, laws, manners, and customs, 
as well as by social ties, we have been drawn ten 
times nearer to the heart of England since. Moral 
and physical approximation has knit a union beyond 
the power of legislation to strengthen, and, I believe 
in my soul, beyond the power of agitation to dis¬ 
solve. That process is silently proceeding in spite 
of the noisy declamation around us, because it is 
true and natural, and, therefore, eternal; whereas 
the obstructing influence is paroxysmal and false, and 
therefore fated to yield. All that such an influence 
can do is to retard what must happen sooner or later, 
and what all good men must wish to happen soon, 
—the fraternization of the human family. 

The game’s up. “ The Irish League” I hold to 
be a retrograde movement; because the dissension 
of a large society must ever be weaker than the 
union of a small one. 

The game’s up. I am an anonymous pamphle¬ 
teer, and have no business to offer advice. What I 
have done is what any one might do. I have stated 
what I believe to be facts, and I have drawn what I 
consider to be fair deductions from them. Any one 
can judge whether I am correct in my facts, and 
sound in my inferences. It may be that in these lat¬ 
ter I am mistaken. It may be that I may look back 
to this little tract, as to a single stone in a water¬ 
way, the sole remains of a dam swept away by the 


64 


resistless current of revolution. Any one, neverthe¬ 
less, is at liberty to throw out conjectures;—but 
advice should come recommended by character and 
authority. A nameless writer can show neither; 
so I offer none. How to profit by a lesson, how to 
derive advantage from .experience, must be left to 
others, or to the breast of each, to determine. But 
this much I may say, that those qualities which 
would disgrace us as individuals can never ennoble 
us as a community; that history can offer no precedent 
which shall justify a dereliction from the immutable 
code of morality; and, furthermore, that the object 
which we all profess to seek for—the welfare of our 
country—will be promoted more effectually by the 
exercise of individual virtue than by the organization 
of the most powerful party. Where the Great Pat¬ 
tern of humanity was set up for us to imitate, slavery 
existed in its worst form. How did that divine 
teacher set about its abolition? Not by denouncing 
it in terms, but by preaching those doctrines which 
tend to emancipate the whole human race. 

Audi say,in like manner, truth and moderation are 
all the liberty we now want in this country. The dis¬ 
tress we deplore will be borne with resignation; the 
relief we have availed ourselves of will be acknow¬ 
ledged with gratitude; the prosperity we sigh for will 
be attained in the shortest possible space of time, by 
the silent working of natural causes, as the fruit of 
individual fortitude, industry, enterprise, and virtue. 

THE END. 



A STITCH IN TIME. 


It is a great comfort to reflect that no harm is done 
yet. 

Not a blow has been struck. Threatening as the 
aspect of things undoubtedly is, still it is only threat¬ 
ening,—disaffection is not yet kebellion. 

I speak, of course, of the present moment. The 
words I write, before the press descends upon them, 
may belong to a by-gone era. In the winnowing of 
an hour, all that characterizes the Present may have 
passed into history, and my conjectures gone off to 
the winds. 

Nevertheless, no man can do more than study, ob¬ 
serve, and speculate, as respects the past, the present, 
and the future. In the last, if he have fairly fulfilled 
the first two duties, he need not blush to be mistaken. 

It is much that the Kubicon of revolution has not 
been passed. 

Few consider how much is preserved with the pre¬ 
servation of the existing order of things,—how much 
is gained when nothing is lost. In an old community. 



4 


in which any change must be a bloody disruption of 
all existing cohesion, to have survived the late catas¬ 
trophes of Europe argues one of two things,—either 
that the grasp of despotism is too strong upon a 
country to allow it to move, or that its adjustments 
can bear a shock without dislocation. Kussia is an 
example of the former case. I think I may safely 
take the British Empire as an instance of the latter. 
Some commotion was naturally felt in these coun¬ 
tries, acting on masses which have only a physical 
and not a political or constitutional coherence; just 
as, in the year 1755, during the earthquake of Lisbon, 
bodies of water were observed to be agitated,—to 
fluctuate and bubble,—as far from the centre of ac¬ 
tion as certain parts of these islands, while the land 
surrounding them was undisturbed by a shock. But 
the arrangement of things has remained sound and 
safe. The strata of society hold together. The grain, 
and the timber, the cottage, the cathedral, and the 
palace, which they underlie, continue uninjured; and 
the millions they bear on their surface find that they 
have not relied on their stability in vain. 

If man’s best efforts be fruitless without the con¬ 
current assistance of Providence, we owe a debt of 
gratitude to God, for having enabled this great Em¬ 
pire gradually to fabricate a framework of society 
sufficiently flexible to bend with the storm, and suf¬ 
ficiently firm to survive it. 

With us, no doubt, as perhaps with every nation, 
revolution was a law of our being. The disease was 


5 


to be passed through, like the measles or hooping- 
cough. We could not, from the unlettered wildness 
of the middle ages, reach to political years of discre¬ 
tion, without undergoing the usual maladies inciden¬ 
tal to infancy. But as such complaints are best got 
over early, we had the attack in time, and stood it 
without chronic injury to our constitution,—nay, 
with permanent advantage to it. 

By we^ of course I mean the British Islands,—for 
the revolutions in England were reflected in Scotland 
and Ireland ; and, since the Union, we are one em¬ 
pire, Ireland partaking of all the benefits secured by 
the revolutions of England. 

England, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centu¬ 
ries, went through phases precisely and curiously 
analogous to those exhibited in France in the eigh¬ 
teenth and nineteenth. But she secured more li¬ 
berty, prosperity, religion, and happiness, after they 
had passed away, than France has done, or is likely 
to do, with all her expenditure of human life. It is 
worth while to consider how. 

In the first place, in England the religious refor¬ 
mation and the political revolution did not take place 
simultaneously. 

Again, the breaking down of superstition and 
priestcraft in England made room for a pure and 
reformed Christian faith ; whereas, in France, the 
efibrts of a few witty sceptics succeeded in demo¬ 
lishing the old form of corrupted Komanism, without 
having prepared a new mould for the national wor- 


6 


sliip to run into. Hence, the masses cooled down 
formlessly,—that is, in infidelity. 

This, of course, had its effect on the political re¬ 
volution, which ran concurrently with the religious 
in the latter country. Complete license having been 
recognised in religious matters, complete liberty was 
the corresponding recognition in politics. The idea 
of social subjugation to any person, or assemblage of 
persons, was naturally repudiated, with the idea of 
subjugation to a divine power. The creed was that 
of reason ; and reason (by which we are “ as gods”) 
tells a man that no being on earth, or in heaven, has 
a right to rule over him, or to deprive him of so much 
as a fragment of his liberty. 

In England, in the seventeenth century, the course 
of things was different; because religion had already 
gone through its crisis, and was fixed on a firm basis 
before the political convulsion supervened. 

Elere, in Ireland, our democratic leaders are seek¬ 
ing to bring about the political revolution before the 
religious reformation. Most of those who are serious 
amongst them are, as their public code of political 
and social morality witnesses, unquestionably Jaco¬ 
bins. In this place I put aside the Old Ireland party 
altogether, where principles are in question ; for I 
conceive them to be playing a game, and assisting 
the democratic section for other and concealed pur¬ 
poses, just as I believe the great founder and leader 
of that party to have been playing the Jesuit during 
the greater portion of his life. 


7 


Thus imbued with infidelity, they urge revolu¬ 
tion upon the country, in the face of the religion of 
the vast majority of the population; that is, first, in¬ 
directly, by compassing and extolling acts which that 
religion, as a Christian religion, must under any cir¬ 
cumstances discountenance ; and secondly, directly, 
not only by declaring religious differences to be of 
little or no importance, politically considered, but 
by sneering on every admissible occasion at religion 
itself in the abstract, and at its precepts, whenever 
they interfere with those great heathen maxims which 
justify the passions of pride, hate, and revenge, and 
acknowledge a “ God of battles/’ 

Our safety ought to lie in this circumstance. We 
ought to be sure of a people who are eminently de¬ 
voted to their Church, whose Church is well manned 
with ministers, and who are politically tampered 
with chiefly by those who make light of all creeds 
and do not even profess their’s. 

We ought to feel complete confidence. Why do 
we not ? Alas! can the question be answered without 
casting a heavy imputation somewhere ? Let us, as 
being the most charitable course, lay it to the mis¬ 
taken casuistry which allows of a lesser evil for the 
acquisition of a greater good, that the Roman Ca¬ 
tholic priesthood of Ireland have suffered themselves 
to swerve so widely from their plain duty. For, were 
they true to their own faith, as it is delivered to them 
, in the Bible, they would make every altar a focus of 
denunciation—of what ?—not of constituted authori- 


8 


ties, which the Scripture commands them to reve¬ 
rence ,—not of actions which are purely secular ,—not 
of men or bodies of men with whom it is not their 
province to interfere,—but of principles alien to the 
Christian creed which Christian ministers are bound 
to inculcate,—of passions that creed boldly anathema¬ 
tizes,—of acts unequivocally evil, because evil under 
any circumstances of provocation. 

But a blindness seems to have fallen upon the Ro¬ 
manist clerical body in this country. Not to speak 
of the sacred obligation, it is manifestly for their own 
interest that they should stand thus forward. I mean, 
for their own interest, in any narrower sense than 
that which presupposes the disruption of the em¬ 
pire. And even on that supposition now it would 
not be difficult to show that the chance of bettering 
themselves by their present course is very preca¬ 
rious indeed. Day after day the works of the move¬ 
ment party are carried closer to the citadel of old 
beliefs. For every sap driven in one direction 
against the Imperial government, a branch diverges 
in the other against priestcraft and spiritual subju¬ 
gation. 

This, I think, seems to have been perceived at 
Rome lately. But the priesthood at home are slow 
to alter their tactics. Nevertheless they must do so, 
speedily, openly, and in earnest, or it will he too late. 

If they do, we are safe for the present. I mean, 
safe from any immediate and grave disaster. I firmly 
believe we are safe from dismemberment, whether 



9 


they do or not. But, as I began by saying, it is a great 
matter that blood has not been spilt—and it is a great 
object to prevent its being so ; perhaps “ a stitch in 
time’’ may help in its humble way to accomplish 
this. I confess I am impatient to see the priesthood 
in a body (for in particular instances, to their ho¬ 
nour, they have done so) taking up the exalted 
tone of Christian teachers ; and, leaving it to the Au¬ 
thor of Christianity to work political good out of it 
as to Him it may seem fit, simply preaching what they 
are commanded to do—forbearance, meekness, long- 
sufiering, gentleness, brotherly love. I want to see 
them do violence to their secret prejudices and pre¬ 
dilections, to their self-interest and to their vanity, 
and unhesitatingly denounce those acts, no matter by 
whom committed, which cannot stand the test of the 
Christian code. I would have them more anxious to 
assert their own characters as teachers appointed of 
God, against the suspicions of good men in this and 
every other country upon earth, than stand up as coun¬ 
sel for criminals, though those criminals should hap¬ 
pen to belong to their own flock, and have much to pal¬ 
liate their guilt. lam impatient to witness this, not only 
on their own account, but on that of my countrymen: 
for I would infinitely prefer seeing our population 
still despotically swayed as they have been by their 
ministers, to witnessing an emancipation which would 
throw them into the ranks of that heartless infidelity 
now offering to “ fraternize” with them. A corrupted 
Christian creed may wink at, or uphold, many abuses ; 


B 


10 


but the rejection of religious principle must origi¬ 
nate—and perpetuate—every political evil. 

I want no “ pledges.” I have no faith in them. 
I want acts. I want to see the influence of acts. I 
have already, on a previous occasion, adverted to the 
worthlessness of pledges, however solemnly proffered 
and renewed. But Ireland has a right to expect a 
practical proof that there is sincerity at least in 
conduct dictated by self-interest. What has she wit¬ 
nessed instead ? Now, observe. Up to a few months 
ago, it had seemed the object—as it certainly was the 
policy—of the Roman Catholic clergy to discourage 
the “ Young Ireland” party. Accordingly, it was dis¬ 
couraged formally, repeatedly, unequivocally, and 
publicly. There was no room for mistake. The party 
and the partisans were alike stigmatized as immoral, 
detestable, horrible, and unchristian. Well, this was 
all as it should be. But about that time—for what 
reason is not so apparent—a new course was agreed 
upon ; and what was the consequence ? Why, last 
month a coalition with this very party, and these very 
men, was cordially assented to by those identical pre¬ 
lates who had been most forward and persevering in 
the grand commination of them both !—a coalition, 
too, in which it must have been evident that “ Old 
Ireland” fell, resourceless and exhausted, into the 
hands—and measures—of its more vigorous rival. 

Here is a mystery. Where is the clue ? Is it sheer 
weakness ? Is it the hope to bend the “ young” to 
the “ old” ? Is it—heaven forbid that it be so !—the 


11 


fable of the lion expected to be enacted in our own 
country, and at the present day ? Can it be that there 
is the show of throwing the corrective of priestly in¬ 
fluence into this Jacobin movement, in order that, 
in case of reverse, the Church may represent itself as 
having been the spirit of order, vainly endeavouring 
to temper the starkness of disaffection; while, in case 
of success, it may calmly reckon upon the failure of 
the free-thinking arm of the revolution, and step into 
all the advantages gained by an independent posi¬ 
tion, which leaves it master over a devoted and sub¬ 
missive population ? 

I am far from believing that such is really the 
course the Komanist clergy have mapped out for 
themselves. But their present stretches are so bold, 
that one is driven to hoist vague conjectures in order 
to gain sight of them on either tack. I have a three¬ 
fold reason for not believing it to be their line of 
policy: first, it is too iniquitous to be defended, under 
any license of casuistry, by a responsible order before 
the eyes of Europe ; secondly, because the hazard is 
too tremendous to be envisaged by any prudent and 
cautious body of men ; and, thirdly, because, on the 
supposition that their proceedings are preconcerted, 
there seems to be a far more advantageous tactiqiie 
open to them. 

I know the power of that body, and I wish to 
think well of them. We might owe a share of the 
political salvation of our country to them. Why will 
they not make us their debtors to that incalculable 
amount ? Imperial Ireland would never forget it to 


12 


them. Do they cherish any hope that republican gra¬ 
titude would be equally long-lived ? 

Let them recollect that the pen of History hangs 
over them—that comprehensive chronicle of human 
events, a few brief lines of which discuss the sum of 
intricate and long-protracted manoeuvres. “ The Ro¬ 
manist priesthood in Ireland, at the period in ques¬ 
tion, lent their aid, more or less openly, to the political 
disorganization of the empire, for purposes of their 
own.” Such may be the sole record for posterity. Or: 
“ The Catholic clergy, so long suspected of having 
aided the schemes of O’Connell for their own inte¬ 
rests, now proved their loyalty to their earthly—and 
heavenly—Sovereigns; and, throwing their power¬ 
ful influence into the scale at the hour of Ireland’s 
peril, neutralized, by the simple preaching of the 
doctrines of Christianity, the most desperate efforts 
of her enemies.” 

A great reaction has set in throughout Europe 
within the short time that has elapsed since I issued 
my first tract. 

Then, Revolution was on the march, drums beat¬ 
ing, colours flying. Not quite as triumphant as at 
the first, it is true, for it began to be pinched for 
subsistence ; but still it was advancing,—and the 
inscription on its banners was, the omnipotence of 

THE PEOPLE. 

It is wonderful how trifling a circumstance may 
change the whole aspect of affairs over the face of the 
world. A scene of carnage, shocking to think of, 


13 


has been enacted in the great continental centre of 
civilization. It has terminated, for the present, in 
favour of order, and against anarchy; but this would 
have had little effect beyond its own sphere, but for 
one discovery, made late in the conflict,—a mere piece 
of military experience, apparently of no consequence 
to any one but an engineer or an artillery officer. It 
was simply this, that a barricade is no longer impreg¬ 
nable, The secret of attack is now known. Even 
in Paris they are already considered useless. Pro¬ 
bably, they will never again be had recourse to. 

Lord Clarendon has lost no time. From the first, 
he dealt with the danger here as its importance de¬ 
manded, and as his resources enabled him to do. As 
soon as he saw us safe from immediate foreign inva¬ 
sion, and an immediate outbreak in England ;—as 
soon as we had a law which met the case, he acted. 
But it was only to take a single step. That step might 
have proved sufficient to have disabled the opponents 
of order altogether. Andif it had, he would, of course, 
never have taken a second in the same direction. But 
a lesson had been learned here from the organizations 
of France, which was put in practice, I verily believe, 
as a forlorn hope, by those leaders of disaffection who 
were reduced to their wits’ end by the fate of their 
comrade. The svstem of Clubs had hastened the 
revolution of February, and now threatened to prove 
too much for the friends of order in France. Ac¬ 
cordingly, clubs were organized throughout Ireland; 
and, the manoeuvre succeeding beyond the hopes of 


14 


its instigators, the tone of confident menace was once 
more assumed,—and with good reason. Up to the last 
month, the doctrine which had been gaining ground 
in Europe for half a century, that the 'peo'ple ,—that 
is, the unclassified mass of the population, without 
reference to any quality but physical force, or num¬ 
bers,—were, not only in theory but in fact, sovereign, 
—had seemed to derive additional confirmation from 
every political event; and, however questionable the 
theory might be deemed, it was the fact that was the 
point to be regarded: since if the people were really 
able, in an organized community, to take the law into 
their own hands, no matter whether they were right 
or wrong in doing so, no one can doubt that they 
would do so, without going into the ethics of the 
question. 

But France, which seems destined—if not for its 
sins, I know not why—to be the corpus vile on 
which the terrible social experiments of the civi¬ 
lized world are*to be made, has, since that period 
settled the question at once and for ever. It is now 
known, by the ghastly evidence of hills of human 
bodies, that, in the cause of order, a regular army 
will fight to the death against its own countrymen. 
It is known that peaceful citizens will not only 
array themselves in military semblance for the pur¬ 
pose of overawing popular demonstrations, but will 
dye their hands in their neighbour’s blood in order 
to suppress rebellion; citizens, too, with their own 
causes of complaint against their government,—with 


15 


their own distrust of the administration under which 
they act. It is known that a fortress more formi¬ 
dable and more vast than any which engineering 
skill ever constructed, and manned by hundreds of 
thousands of desperate, determined men, goaded by 
every passion of hate and hope which can strengthen 
a heart and nerve an arm, and whose movements 
were directed by one preconcerted and masterly 
plan, can be stormed, under peculiar circumstances 
of disadvantage,—ignorance of the enemy’s defences, 
mistaken tactics, raw troops, conflicting commands, 
—by the honest energy of men who had already 
proved, as the deeds of February could witness, that 
“ liberty” was at least as precious to them as to their 
opponents. It is known, moreover, as I have already 
said, that the peculiar mode of defence adopted by 
insurgents in cities is no longer availing anywhere ; 
the barricade can be turned, under the most unfa¬ 
vourable circumstances, with comparatively little 
difficulty or danger. 

All this the world has learned from the affair of 
Paris in June. We have all of us learned it. The 
disaffected here have learned it. The executive has 
learned it. There is no longer any hope of treating 
with the leaders of the movement; they have gone 
too far to recede. It is better that they should be 
felons now, than traitors by and by. Accordingly, 
the greater number of these men have been arrested, 
and must abide their trial as offenders against the 
laws of their country ; whilst extraordinary powers 
have been vested by Parliament in the Lord Lieu- 


16 


tenant, to enable him to meet the impending danger 
with effect. 

And here I must digress for a moment, to guard 
against being mistaken in what I said of the last 
insurrection in Paris. I merely spoke of what had 
occurred there as a fact, and of the instruction to 
be derived to us from that fact. I am not by any 
means prepared to affirm that the insurrection was 
unprovoked, or even unjustifiable, or that the Go¬ 
vernment of France set itself to crush the insur¬ 
gents with clean hands. This is not necessary for 
my case. We must recollect that a half-fed popu¬ 
lation had been instigated to dethrone the king of 
their own choosing, by the promise that they should 
be whole-fed. A hard-worked and scantily paid 
class were told that, for the accomplished dethrone¬ 
ment, they should have easy work and high wages. 
This was quite intelligible, and very agreeable news. 
Clever men,—men of education and logic,—men 
who could talk down plain practical reasoners, had 
told them so. It was no vision of the enthusiast,— 
no mirage of unslaked thirst, conjuring up rivers in 
the desert. Oh, no! It was philosophy—it was science 
—it was statistics—it was political economy—it was 
the induction of reason—it was the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury ! Well: they did dethrone the king; they 
did it humanely, and spilt no unnecessary blood; they 
did it honestly, and abstained from pillage. They 
placed the men who had made those promises to them 
in power, and submitted themselves placidly and im- 



17 


plicitly to their guidance. They did this at an im¬ 
mediate loss; for the disturbance of order and of the 
old system of course interfered with trade, com¬ 
merce, and manufactures, as business had previously 
been conducted. In the interval, they were all the 
worse for it. 

The theories were ostentatiously reduced to prac¬ 
tice. Competition was quite out of fashion. Men 
blushed to think that they had ever acted on so ridi¬ 
culous a principle. “ Fraternity” was the word. 
Definitions were remodelled. “ Labour” was held to 
mean wholesome exercise ; “ vrages,” national divi¬ 
dends ; and so on. And then the people looked from 
day to day for the promised prosperity, plenty, and 
happiness. They were wonderfully patient. During 
three of the severest months of the year they submit¬ 
ted to subsist on the short commons of hope. But 
when they perceived, as they did at last, that the theo¬ 
ries with which they had been amused were less con¬ 
fidently advanced every day,—that the authors of 
them began to occupy less and less of the public eye,— 
to shrink away from observation,—at last to disappear 
altogether,—that, in dreadful earnest, those grim scru¬ 
tineers, Famine and Death, were reviewing the spe¬ 
cious syllogisms, and detecting their sophistry,—then, 
indeed, they awoke with exasperation from the mag¬ 
netic sleep into which they had suffered themselves 
to be cajoled, and their cry was, “ Vengeance on the 
authors of our miseries !” The charlatans were not 
to be discriminated from the government of the day; 


c 


18 


their accomplices were not to be distinguished from 
the mass of the better classes. The victims rose, 
therefore, against society, which dissevered itself 
from them,—against order, which doomed them to 
perish,—against a government which had seduced, 
and then deserted them. 

Nor can the conquest obtained over them be 
boasted of even now as a triumph. It is the con¬ 
quest of the river by the dam. Starvation swells 
the stream at this very moment. Animosity and 
crime are fed with blood. Four hundred thousand 
people are more destitute, more exasperated, and 
more familiarized with crime, than they were before 
the insurrection. The question for each will, in 
the end, come to this : “ Shall I die silently in my 
garret, or manfully in the streets 

Why have I digressed into these matters ? 

Because, in the speeches and writings of the 
popular leaders here I recognise the prologue of a 
drama, which, for them, if acted to the end, will 
have a yet more fatal catastrophe than the analogous 
tragedy of France. 

A man incurs a tremendous responsibility when 
he promises anything to a nation. In proportion to 
the vastness of the interests concerned, is the risk 
incurred in the event of non-performance. The more 
brilliant the future that is pictured in the eloquence 
of the orator, the more dark the contrast will prove, if 
it be never, or be not immediately realized. For what 
have the new Repeal leaders, including Protestants 


19 


as well as Romanists, gone security to the people of 
Ireland ? Is it merely for a fair field for their indus¬ 
try ? Elbow-room to drudge with less molestation 
at their toil ? Space and time to overtake the civi¬ 
lization of Europe ? More, far more, than this. Re¬ 
collect, the multitude will always take the language 
of promise literally, however metaphorically they 
may interpret prophecy. The great promise which 
concerns them is— bread. Bread is, in language 
borrowed from a higher source, the one thing need¬ 
ful. Bread to starving or half-fed millions; bread in 
sufficiency, and in peace ; bread for work, perhaps; 
but, at all events. Bread. To this promise every¬ 
thing else is subordinate. All the dignity of “ nation¬ 
hood” will signify nothing unless this pledge be re¬ 
deemed. To be “ great, glorious, and free,” people 
must have bread to eat. 

Contemplate Ireland one month after a revolution 
at this period of the year. Four months after it, if 
the harvest be previously got in. What would be 
the aspect of her countenance, when all the ordinary 
expedients to support nature had failed, and the ex¬ 
traordinary ones of pillage and robbery were ex¬ 
hausted ? On whom would she first turn her fa¬ 
mished eye, when succour had ceased to be hoped 
for, and vengeance remained the only instinct pos¬ 
sible to be gratified ? If a timely flight had not 
forestalled the public yearning, there would, at least, 
be one appetite gratified—that of revenge —in tear¬ 
ing these sureties of plenty to pieces, and devouring 


20 


tliem as instalments of what they had promised to 
pay. 

A more dangerous play was never played than to 
lure a populace in its extremity to acts of violence 
by hopes of a material nature, which may, by any 
possibility, prove delusive. The violence once com¬ 
mitted dethrones self-respect ; it makes a people, as 
it makes a man, ill-humoured; and the very uneasi¬ 
ness of the conscience will seek to quiet itself, by 
bringing to its bar the culprit who had originally 
seduced it to error. 

It is time to return from my disgression. 

I can easily anticipate the feelings with which 
many well-meaning Irishmen will read my sketch of 
the government tactics, as hitherto pursued. They 
will reflect with indignation upon the despotic po¬ 
licy my strictures seem to countenance, and ask: 
“ Is this a time of day, when you can dragoon a 
people into contentment and happiness, and when a 
lucky discovery in military science is proposed to 
silence the dissensions and settle the internal dis¬ 
putes of a great empire?” 

Menenius were, indeed, a strange mediator of 
peace, if he sought to terminate the secession of the 
people by means of such sentiments. Lord Claren¬ 
don can now act. I have shown why. He is acting. 
I need not show how. You all know it. But un¬ 
less he have argument in his favour, his acts will be 
in vain. Acts are of no real use except to carry out 


21 


arguments. Arguments must be at the bottom of 
the gun-barrel, or the recoil will be more dangerous 
than the discharge. In all that I have hitherto said 
I have assumed that he is in the right. Why have 
I made this assumption? Because the majority of 
the Council of the Empire has thought so and said 
so. The place where these matters are legitimately 
argued under the British Constitution, is in the Par¬ 
liament of the United Empire; and there it has been 
held that it is expedient to repress the present fer¬ 
ment in Ireland with a strong hand. I have, there¬ 
fore, primd facie case in my favour. It is not on 
my own authority I ask assent to the assumption: it 
has already the sanction of the Empire in its consti¬ 
tutional Council. 

I must not forget, at the same time, what has been 
confidently advanced by the illuminated few across 
the channel who call themselves “ Young England,’’ 
—that a state of things is approaching, in which the 
requirements of civilization will demand, or rather 
necessitate, a surrender of the old cumbrous device 
of oral debate ; and that the peess will, by its own 
power, in time supersede all deliberative machinery. 
Already, indeed, it seems to possess a telegraphic 
way to the mind ; and old-fashioned Public Opinion, 
though it may fancy itself borne along with the ve¬ 
locity of an express, too often discovers that it has 
arrived behind time, and is hopelessly in the grasp 
of journalizing detectives. 

Neither must I forget (though, somehow or other, 


22 


it directly contravenes certain other assumptions of 
the illuminati of the sister Isle) that political theorists 
have for more than half a century seemed to take it 
for granted that the natural tendency of governments 
is towards complete democracy ; so much so, that 
those who are most opposed to that form, as a ques¬ 
tion of expediency, leave the theory untouched, and 
content themselves with the endeavour to stave off 
as long as possible what they deem inevitable. 

Now, as to the first topic, the destiny of the Press, 
I do not care to say much. I shall be criticised by 
the Press. It is judge and jury in its own case. Pru¬ 
dence dictates reserve. If the Press were simply the 
reflex of public opinion,—if it did not create, as often 
as it represents, the general mind, I might subscribe 
to the justice of Mr. D’lsraeli’s views respecting it. 
Concealment, I admit, is an evil. Let every thought 
be known,—every heart laid bare. Legislation can 
never work on perfect data until this consummation 
be reached. The statistics of opinion are the most 
valuable material the statesman could collect. But, 
unfortunately, thePress acts in two ways: in one sense 
it is an echo of the public voice,—in another it is 
itself an individual voice, seeking its echo from mul¬ 
titudes. It may, therefore, put forth individual opi¬ 
nions, instead of reflecting general ones. In point of 
fact it frequently does. And here it possesses an unfair 
advantage. One man’s opinion may be worth no more 
than another’s. But one man has the mighty speak¬ 
ing-trumpet at his command, which the other has not. 


23 


and his words go forth where those of the other can 
never reach. Nor will it ever be ascertained how far 
the legitimate objective function of the Press is super¬ 
seded by the illegitimate subjective function, which 
gives to a single mind, by the diffusion of its ideas, 
an advantage more than commensurate with its actual 
value. Until these two functions can be separated, 
the anticipated “ sovereignty of the Press” must be 
considered an equivocal blessing. In practice, the 
sovereignty of the minds which had possessed that 
advantage has not proved the golden age for France. 

But, on the second point, I mean the discoverable 
tendency of governments towards the ideal of a de¬ 
mocracy, I must make bold to differ more decidedly 
from the popular school of politics. I shall be the first 
to admit that slavery is an evil,—that the people must 
have a due share in their own government,—that the 
more liberty a nation can safely possess, the happier 
and more prosperous it is, and so forth. But I con¬ 
tend, first, that democracy is not the natural condition 
of society, no matter how civilized—or how barba¬ 
rous—it may be ; that is, not the condition in which 
society first discovers itself, or into which, on being 
disturbed, it will settle, if left to its own influences: 
and I hold, secondly, that democracy being an ar¬ 
tificial form of government, it is desirable that it 
should not contain within itself the elements of sta¬ 
bility, but have—as it has—a tendency to lapse into 
one or other of the true forms. 

If, however, the doctrine of the sovereignty of 



24 


THE PEOPLE be sound, in fact or in principle,—that is, 
if it be true that they are sovereign, or right that they 
should he so, then democracy follows as a corollary; 
it is the terminus at which political society must ulti¬ 
mately arrive. 

This was the watchword of the first French Re¬ 
volution. This was the theme of the new philoso¬ 
phy of Europe. It was proclaimed with such a pa¬ 
rade of authority, that to deny it was looked upon as 
not only folly, but treason ; a treason which every 
one was concerned in exposing, because every one 
was born within the purple of the sovereignty in 
question, and had an interest in defending it. 

Political theories have, however, of late been sub¬ 
mitted repeatedly to the stubborn test of experiment. 
National cycles, formerly spread over generations, 
have been, in these days, compressed into a brief 
interval of time ; and results which used to be the 
deductions of historic abstraction have now come 
within the range of individual observation. 

From the experience of recent events, the world 
has unlearned —as well as learned—a great deal. It 
now sees that, in point of fact, “ the people” are not 
omnipotent; and that, where they have been per¬ 
mitted to exercise the supreme power, they have 
proved unfit to use it, and unable to retain it; gra¬ 
vitating down from the surface by a natural process, 
and throwing up other governing influences, identi¬ 
cal with, or analogous to, those ancient ones they 
had discarded. 


25 


The cause of these successive efforts and successive 
failures, was a false theory. The “ People” never can 
be sovereign; and “ Liberty” never can be complete. 
The laws of human nature, influencing communities 
as well as individuals, are against it. Providence 
has assigned bounds to man’s sovereignty, as to 
man’s liberty. The revealed laws of God have con¬ 
firmed these pre-existing laws, and said that there 
must be limits to both. The point to aim at in na¬ 
tional revolutions, as in national legislation, is a mean 
and not an extreme. As sure as you exceed the for¬ 
mer, you will oscillate again through the whole arc 
to tlie very extreme you sought to escape from. 
France was taught this lesson in her first revolution, 
through a period which occupied about twenty years. 
She failed to derive wisdom from experience; and 
now the same cycle has been all but run in a few 
months ! Can she—can the world—refuse any 
longer to square their philosophy by such stern in¬ 
culcation ? 

I am well aware that to attempt now-a-days to 
deny the truth of the maxim that “ the people is 
sovereign,” is to set the whole world open-mouthed 
upon me,—not simply in a mass, but marshalled by 
great names,—mighty authorities, who have an¬ 
nounced the glorious truth, and established it as an 
imperishable axiom in politics. 

Well, all I have to say for myself is this—I hope I 
, possess some common sense as well as another man. 
The doctrine, I suppose, is a fair subject for inquiry; 

D 



26 


and not, like that of the Trinity, to be accepted with 
reverential faith. Moreover, it concerns myself and 
my country. I have, therefore, a right to inquire 
into it. 

Accordingly, I will inquire into it; and if it be 
contrary to reason or revelation I will reject it, no 
matter what anathemas may be thundered against 
me. I know, moreover, that great names have before 
now kept up the credit of unsound arguments, to the 
great detriment of true knowledge. Every student is 
aware, that when Hume’s apparently unanswerable 
scepticism came to be scrutinized by the Scotch 
philosophers, it was found to be based on certain 
theories of Locke, which had been received without 
question by Berkeley; and it was only by discovering 
the fallacy of Locke’s reasoning which lay at the 
foundation, that they were able to overthrow Hume’s 
infidel superstructure. 

I feel, however, that such a subject cannot possibly 
be discussed as it ought to be, within the limits or 
according to the style this humble form of publica¬ 
tion confines me to. I must, therefore, only say a few 
desultory words; which, indeed, may be the fewer, as 
I have one great ally on my side —experience ; which 
has proved, first, that the people is a bad sovereign; 
and, secondly, that, except by permission, it is not 
sovereign at all. Nevertheless, as this fallacy, 
which is already beginning to be exposed in most 
of the councils of Europe, has found refuge in this 
country, and figures at the head of certain “ articles 


27 


of faith,” put forth by a newspaper which lately pro¬ 
claimed itself the organ of Irish republicanism, I 
may look it in the face for a moment. 

“ After the will of God, the will of the people is 
almighty.” 

I come at once to definitions. What is “ the peo¬ 
ple ?” 

Let me first gather the meaning of the term from 
these articles, throughout which it is evidently made 
identical with “ the nation ;” The majority of a 
nation is the nation.” Here it is explained: “ The 
nation,” and its synonym, “tlie people,” mean the 
physical mass, or numerical preponderance of a com¬ 
munity. 

Such was the Tribune's idea of the “ people;” a 
power which, it asserted, is to make its own govern¬ 
ment; which may enthrone and dethrone monarchs; 
which cannot commit treason ; to act against which 
is treason ; whose attribute is sovereignty ; whose 
majesty is only reflected by that of the monarch ; 
and of whom the monarch is but the first paid ser¬ 
vant. 

Very well. “ After the will of God” the will of 
the numerical majority of “ the people" is “ almighty.” 

Before I return to the main definition, let me 
endeavour to understand the “article” itself. I 
presume that, by “ is almighty” our new Ollamh 
Fodhla means ought to he almighty,” for the posi¬ 
tive assertion calls for proof, which is not so easy to 
be had. What does “ after the will of God” mean? 


28 


Suppose it were the will of God that the “ people’^ 
should not have their will, what then? How can a 
will be at once subordinate and almighty? Suppose 
that, as individuals have a wicked will sometimes, 
the people should have a wicked will too, ought this 
to be almighty? But, take a third supposition. It 
may mean, “ provided God so will it, the will of the 
people should be almighty.” This is a truism. Under 
such circumstances, it not only should be, but must 
be almighty. Hence, we have not advanced a step. 
There is no “ almightiness” at all in a “ people,” how¬ 
ever you may define that term ; for you have, on the 
admission of this, the express organ of republicanism, 
riRST to look to the will of God. I need not push 
the point farther ; we all know what God’s will is 
as to human will. The simplest elements of Chris¬ 
tianity teach this. 

Now to return to the Tribunes “ people.” I like to 
startle the reader. I am not afraid of speaking truth, 
even in the language of paradox. Accordingly, I say 
that there is no such class whatever in a social com¬ 
munity, having a constitutional government^ as “ the 
people,” in the Tribune's sense of the term. It is the 
mere residuum, after every possible element of con¬ 
sideration has been extracted from it. It is the types 
in the case, as compared with the types in the form. 
It might so happen, that the Tribune's “people”— 
that is, the majority—might prove, according to ano¬ 
ther classification, the true and legitimate sovereignty 
of the nation,—and happy is the nation so circum- 


staiiced ; but, from being the simple majority, it de¬ 
rives no sovereignty whatever. 

To make myself better understood, I will lay down 
a few short principles, embodying some of my ideas 
relative to this subject: 

1. In men there are two powers,—the physical and 
the mental. The former, or physical, is pretty nearly 
equal in equal masses, and increases directly as the 
mass ; whereas mental power varies in different in¬ 
dividuals to such a degree, that the amount of mind 
in masses cannot be estimated by the number of in¬ 
dividuals composing them ; added to which, moral 
power does not increase by multiplication, like phy¬ 
sical. United minds act in a different way from united 
bodies on each other. The accession of a weaker 
physical power lends aid to the stronger, as far as 
its power extends; whereas the admixture of weaker 
mental or moral power with the stronger, makes the 
combination weaker than the unaided strength of the 
stronger; in other words, physical power is the sum 
of all its component parts,—mental or moral power 
the average of them. 

2. Society has always existed in a state of inequa¬ 
lity ; no tendency towards complete equality has as 
yet been indicated anywhere. The laws of the hu¬ 
man constitution point to the necessity of this ine¬ 
quality. From any forced equalization a relapse will 
unavoidably ensue ; some parts will rise and some 
will sink ; and society will settle into two classes,— 
the strong and the weak,—the wise and the simple,— 


30 


the good and the bad,—the governing and the go¬ 
verned. 

3. It is the object of all good men to temper this 
inequality, by preventing the governors from becom¬ 
ing despotic, and the governed from becoming ser¬ 
vile. 

4. Physical power is necessary, in a subordinate 
capacity, to carry out certain objects proposed by the 
mind; and must take a position exactly regulated by 
the amount of mind which influences it. It is the 
tool, the implement, or the weapon, in the hand of 
the mind, according as mechanical art, husbandry, 
or war, are the objects to which it is to be applied. 

5. Where there is bodily work to be done, men 
are reckoned by polls. It is thus we count opera¬ 
tives, farm labourers, armies. It is only when 
muscle is to be employed that numbers represent 
strength. 

O 

6. The mind and feeling of a people are the true 
standards of its value. The constitution should be 
so framed that these should be always predominant. 

7. But mind and feeling are not to be estimated 
by numbers. 

8. Mind and feeling ought to be elevated by so¬ 
ciety, as they are by nature, to an importance irre¬ 
spective of numerical calculation. 

9. Under a free constitution, property is acquired 
by superiority of mind and feeling; social and poli¬ 
tical eminence is attained by the same means. The 
power of influencing others, existing by nature, is 


oi 


secured by the same means. Our constitution con¬ 
fers all these privileges on mind and feeling. 

10. Mind and feeling, thus elevated by nature, the 
laws of society, and our own constitution, will have 
their due influence in governing; but are not esti¬ 
mated by numbers. 

11. The Nation, signifying an organized commu¬ 
nity, in which mind and feeling hold their true po¬ 
sition, is, and ought to be, for political purposes, 
“ almighty.” 

12. The Nation,in t he sense of the physical ma¬ 
jority, ought to be held in subjection, like any other 
brute force ; and he who attributes power to the na¬ 
tion in this sense holds ideas not only treasonable 
in a constitutional sense, but incompatible with the 
existence of society. 

13. The smallest degree of mental or moral su¬ 
periority will, in the end, give property and influence. 

14. The smallest degree of property and influence 
is sulflcient, in a representative government such as 
our’s, to give a man power beyond that of a unit in 
the population. 

15. It is within the reach of every mind in our 
free community, to influence affairs in the exact pro¬ 
portion to its power. 

16. Governments were originally despotic, and 
modelled on the patriarclial state. Family govern¬ 
ment is still despotic, and every individual has been, 

, up to a certain period, amenable to it, either directly 
or under scholastic discipline. 


32 


17. The natural governments are monarchies and 
oligarchies. A democracy or a republic is an artificial 
state of society ; and if those who are elevated by 
mental superiority made a proper use of their power, 
would be probably unknown in the communities of 
mankind. It is the penalty which society has to pay 
for the violation of her own laws. 

18. The abuses of the primitive forms of govern¬ 
ment have from time to time caused, not a recur¬ 
rence to, but a violation of, first principles, called 
revolutions, and the establishment by general consent 
of artificial forms of government, in which the com¬ 
munity itself shall have a direct and immediate part 
in the government of the whole, instead of an indi¬ 
rect and remote share, by representation and social 
position. 

19. The want of unity in such governments gene¬ 
rally renders them short-lived ; but, to have any life 
at all, they must recognise the principle of moral 
and intellectual superiority at the outset against the 
doctrine of numerical preponderance. 

Such are a few plain, common-sense maxims, which 
may at all events serve to put in a clearer light the 
fallacy conveyed under the specious axiom, that 
“ the people is sovereign.” In one sense it is plain 
that the people is sovereign ; but when the doctrine 
is put forth to justify the arming of an ignorant and 
deluded populace with pikes and pitchforks, against 
the whole moral and intellectual array of the com- 


33 


munity, a few words of refutation may be useful, if 
it be only to satisfy those who feel the truth like 
an intuition, though they cannot reduce it to terms. 

God knows I ought not to be driven to this. To 
show that the eye pierces farther than the eye-lash 
reaches,—that the range of the human intellect ex¬ 
ceeds that of the human arm,—and that such ought to 
be the case,—one might think a work of surplusage ; 
but these journalists have to talk down from their 
rostrums to very unlearned, very credulous, and very 
itching ears ; and it is astonishing what an advan¬ 
tage it gives them,—how much they can get their 
auditors to swallow and digest. 

The French revolutionists of the last century never 
ventured to go these lengths. Even Eabaut, the most 
extreme of the republican theorists who did not 
break forth into actual madness, shrinks from such 
extravagance. 

It is melancholy—must I say hopeless ?—to reflect 
on such studious deception and such easy credulity, 
when there is no corrective medium between elo¬ 
quent and high-flown absurdity on the one side, and 
absolute faith on the other ; no sound public opinion, 
no sturdy common sense, which, standing half-way, 
shall demand scrutiny on the part of those ad¬ 
dressed, and some semblance of plausibility on the 
part of those addressing. What is to be done? 
Here, in this very creed, there is not only the gross 
deceit of first calling the physical majority of Ireland 
the Nation, and then attributing to a mass of pike- 

E 


34 


men the majesty and the rights of natural sove¬ 
reignty, but, what is more fearful to contemplate, 
the avowal of a persecuting and tyrannical code, 
under the name of liberty. 

Yes, a persecuting and tyrannical code. The word 
“ liberty” sounds very speciously all throughout. It 
runs from end to end like “ the rogue’s yarn” in the 
dock-yard cables ; but any one a whit wiser than the 
persons for whose enlightenment the document was 
drawn up, can see that a rigid and despotic system is 
contained within it, and constitutes its true spirit. 
What is political liberty? Is it the liberty to think 
with the “ nation,” to serve it, to praise it, to assist 
it, to live for it, to die for it ? Why, under the Au¬ 
tocrat, or the Sultan, one may do that. Liberty is 
a condition of general toleration,—of concession to 
dissent,—of forbearance towards minorities,—of uni¬ 
versal permission, in fact, except where the general 
interest necessitates restriction. Is this what breathes 
through the “ tribunitial” code ? Why, half of it 
is a definition of “treason,” the highest crime which 
can be committed against a State ; and it is made to 
extend to almost every act, word, and thought which 
does not chime in with the exact spirit and policy 
of “ The Tribune^ itself: and, moreover, for our 
comfort, already includes in its scope every one of 
us, who are not rebels in heart and conspirators in 
act. Bright prospects for the defeated party in the 
new republic, to be judged by this benign code ! 

Just take a few of the articles in question. I have 


35 


shown that the physical majority of Ireland is held 
to be “ the nation.’' Well. 

“ A nation cannot commit treason.” Hence, if the 
peasantry in the country, and the operatives in the 
city, no matter under what circumstances, think 
proper to rise, massacre the better classes, and seize 
the reins of Government, they have not committed 
“ treason.” But it goes on: “ To oppose by force the 
expressed will of the nation is treason.” Kecollect, 
—the Jacquerie have burst into the Castle, and 
hoisted the green—or, more probably, black —flag on 
its towers ; and then the article runs, that if we at' 
tempt to oppose the insurgents, who have thus “ ex¬ 
pressed” their “ will” tolerably plainly, we have com¬ 
mitted “ treason”! 

Yet observe how all this sophistry must break 
out into absurdity at last. 

“ To use the regular army for the purpose of in¬ 
timidating or crushing the will of the nation is trea¬ 
son.” Here it is first assumed that there is a nation, 
—that is, a classified community, for otherwise it 
is only a population—then, that the will of the ma¬ 
jority is the will of the nation ; and then, that that will 
is absolutely almighty, omitting the exception origi¬ 
nally made in favour of the will of God. All this 
has to be assumed before the framer of the code can 
make his point good; which is nothing less than this, 
that if the lowest classes appeal to physical force, no 
matter how criminally (as, for instance, where they 
seek to visit the consequences of a natural calamity 


36 


on society in general), the moral and intellectual 
force, if it fall back upon those defences which the 
prudence of the Legislature has organized against 
this very danger, whether from domestic or foreign 
sources, commits “ treason!” 

I need not go farther. Such utter disregard of all 
reasoning,—such violation of the simplest maxims,— 
such repudiation of the commonest axioms,—such 
dogged rejection of self-evident propositions,—such 
bold arraignment of intuitive truths,—baffle and 
confound refutation. In their numerical amount, as 
well as in their value, they resemble the “ physical 
force” principle itself. It ceases to be an argument; 
it becomes a struggle. 

And can all this go down in Ireland?—A country 
whose population seems naturally unable to compre¬ 
hend so much as the meaning of a republic?—where 
all the memories and associations of the peasantry 
are patriarchal?—amongst whom the relation of clan¬ 
ship is the only one harmonious with their principles 
and dear to their hearts?—who worship the man 
descended from the man their fathers followed ?— 
would not such a people prefer even despotism to shi¬ 
vering in the uncongenial liberty of such a constitu¬ 
tion ? But,—oh, wonder!—we have lived to see the 
day when newspapers, seeking and finding sympathy 
amongst the populace, actually dare to sneer at the 
religion which every one supposed was the deepest- 
rooted principle at the bottom of their hearts. There 
is scarcely a number of these journals in which the 



37 


Roman Catholic religion is not openly ridiculed, 
the very name made a by-word, and held sufficient 
to point the dullest jest against an enemy. 

It may be said that, in directing my remarks against 
republicanism, I take a course inconsistent with my 
original assumption, that the current of events in 
this country, in case of a successful insurrection, sets 
towards a Roman Catholic despotism. 

I had, however, a reason for choosing this course, 
though I still adhere to my speculative surmise. The 
acts and the arguments of republicanism are open 
and avowed; what the party dares to do, it dares to 
justify. Hence, their words and their doings can be 
met ; which is what the tenets and designs of the 
“ Old Ireland” party never could, and never can. And, 
again ; it is the republican party who are now the 
active party. The immediate danger is from them. 
The other is holding back till the time shall come 
when it can safely seize upon the spoil already 
wrested from the common enemy. 

I therefore deem it right to blow republicanism 
down by argument, if I can, as I would force an out¬ 
work, though it possessed me of nothing, before I 
stormed the body of the place. 

Whether an intellectual cannonade will have the 
effect of demolishing the material defences of disaf¬ 
fection, is more than I can say. I fear not. But I 
would expend much ammunition in the attempt; for I 
feel that, after all, argument is the only true and sure 


38 


way of settling domestic differences. Of course, when 
there is an aggressive movement, it must be repelled 
by force;'^but still the argument remains open. And 
it is the conviction that my fellow-countrymen,—the 
mass of the people,—have been foully used by those 
who constitute themselves their brains’-carriers;— 
that, even taking it for granted that their general 
principles and general assumptions are right, these 
agitators have banished truth and candour utterly 
and openly from their speeches and writings, taking 
advantage of every possible opportunity to misre¬ 
present, traduce, malign, and distort the characters, 
actions, and arguments of their opponents; that they 
have cast behind them the acknowledged code of 

O 

philosophic morality, as they have contemptuously 
rejected the sublime precepts of Christianity; that 
they recklessly seek to plunge this great country into 
the horrors of war, against all the deductions of wis¬ 
dom as to its necessity, without a more defined ob¬ 
ject for the future than uprooting what is, in the hope 
of securing what may be better; that, instead of fol¬ 
lowing the example of the great Washington and 
other illustrious revolutionists, and endeavouring by 
the tone of their writings and of their words to elevate 
the minds of the masses they sAvayed above the control 
of the brute passions, they have studiously sought to 
render the struggle they invite as sanguinary and as 
deadly as possible, goading every malignant instinct 
to desperation, and lashing honest discontent into 
remorseless frenzy;—it is, I say, the conviction that. 


39 


in so doing, the new school of revolt is using my 
fellow-countrymen foully, that urges me forward at 
this time of danger and perplexity, and induces me 
to court the obliquy of opposition, without the so¬ 
lace of friendly approbation, instead of doing what 
I might do with so much more safety and ease, and 
preserving a neutrality, against which the charge of 
inconsistency, at least, could never be urged. 

I love my fellow-countryman—the Irish peasant 
—in my heart. I not only love him because he is 
my countryman, but because I see in him qualities 
to be loved. I love him because he is unfortunate, 
and has borne unexampled privations with unexam¬ 
pled patience. I love him because he is placed at 
a disadvantage. Appearances are against him. He 
is mixed up, in the mind of almost every body who 
has not extensive intercourse with his class, with 
ideas of Ribbonism and ruffianism, with blind resist¬ 
ance to authority, and dark deeds of blood. But men 
who see deeper, or who have taken the trouble of 
examining carefully and extensively for themselves, 
well know how much of this springs from a false 
and pernicious state of things, which it is not in the 
power of the individuals who are its victims to es¬ 
cape from, and which never will be completely got 
rid of until those to whom they look up for advice 
and guidance,—be they clergy or laity,—set them¬ 
selves to the work of reformation in earnest. 

In this respect, the latter years of the life of O’Gon- 
nell might have been redeeming years. In the track 


40 


of the apostle of temperance, he preached order, mo¬ 
rality, self-respect. Had he done so as 2 ^ primary^ 
and not a secondary object, we should not have the 
spectacle of the very same population who, a few 
short years ago, drank in his words as if indeed they 
were the revelation of a new Gospel, now breathing 
hatred and massacre, armed with deadly weapons of 
new and appalling forms, ready to rise up at the bid¬ 
ding of men who utter the suggestions of demons in 
the language of blasphemy, and trample under foot 
all those doctrines of morality, order, and self-respect, 
which had been so repeatedly and apparently so 
effectually inculcated upon them. 

I love the peasantry, because I think it is through 
their good qualities that they are betrayed. They 
are a simple, confiding race, blindly submissive to 
those they trust ; and they never could be won to 
outrage but by tampering with their affections. They 
have been ground in the wine-press of famine,— 
crushed out of all heart and hope ; and, as they are 
recovering from a state of exhaustion, under which 
thousands of their friends and neis^hbours have sunk, 
they are told—in words of burning strength—that 
the English have done it all; and that their wives 
and families will continue to starve, if this horde of 
foreigners, heretics, and exterminators are allowed 
to remain in the country any longer. If a man do 
not prove wise enough to resist this, is he to be 
blamed for it ? 

It is, indeed, a pitiable sight to see the generous 


41 


and toiling peasant in his furrow, striving to handle 
his plough in peace and contentment, and bear with 
cheerfulness the lot of labour which he knows in 
his conscience is imposed upon him rather by the 
will of God than the injustice of man; but goaded 
by the whispers of malignity reaching him from 
these journals, and teasing him, like the attack of 
some venomous insect, too minute for his rough 
strength to annihilate, too subtle for his awkward 
ingenuity to shake off!—these whispers buzzing 
about him, until they seem to become at last a sort 
of echo of his own thoughts, which indeed they are, 
but of those thoughts which he had always recog¬ 
nised as his worst thoughts, representing principles 
and passions which he felt should be discouraged in 
his breast, and which he had till then succeeded in 
keeping in subjection. 

Imagine such a man, in fatigue and vexation of 
spirit, having fruitlessly endeavoured to get rid of 
the tormentor, at last casting by the implements of 
his husbandry, and repairing to the altar of his God, 
there to seek for comfort and for justification from 
the counsel wliich should echo and corroborate the 
still small voice of his own conscience ;—and there 
—even there —finding the torment renewed, the flame 
fed, by the fuel of political harangues—the sting of 
individual denunciations! 

The trials, I presume, will go forward. If I re¬ 
frained on a former occasion from saying a word 

F 


42 


which might wound any party interested for the 
gambler whose “ game was up/^ it is not likely that 
I should now attempt to prejudge cases yet pending, 
or influence the public mind in anything personal to 
the parties. Indeed so keenly do I feel the delicacy 
of my position in this respect, that some explana¬ 
tions I had intended to have made referring to cer¬ 
tain misstatements of my arguments respecting the 
constitution of juries, I shall omit altogether; 
preferring even to be misrepresented, to affording 
grounds for any complaint on this score. I cheer¬ 
fully forego all advantages which this opportunity 
would have presented to myself in a personal matter, 
for the sake of urging the vindication of my country, 
without the imputation of interested motives. For 
I do hold that, in the eyes of Europe, she, too, is on 
her trial:—she is mixed up with the prisoners’ case: 
—she is included in the chars^e af^ainst them. It is 
to resist this flagrant injustice, and detach Irishmen 
from participation in the acts, sayings, writings, and 
feelings which have led to the arraignment of these 
men at the bar of justice,—to exhibit them as the 
victims of an organized and tyrannical system, which, 
by moral and physical violence, deprives them of their 
free will, and places them as helpless recusants, with 
weapons in their reluctant hands, to incur all the 
danger, obloquy, and disgrace of treason, without 
the delirious support of a drugged and drammed con¬ 
science ;—it is to prove an alibi of my country’s heart, 
by witnessing to its presence in the paths of virtue, in 



43 


the marts of industry, in the valleys of peace, in the 
temples of God;—it is to draw away from about 
the persons of the real culprits the multitudes who 
might serve to screen the outlines of their individua¬ 
lity, and countenance the anomaly of their position;— 
it is to leave these face to face with the laws of their 
country, and conduct those in honour and security 
to the shelter of their homes :—it is for such pur¬ 
poses I write. Every lawyer knows the vulgar cant 
of a criminal court;—how it is a recognised trick of 
the prisoner’s counsel to represent his client as the 
object of persecution by an organized conspiracy 
representing the Crown, and headed by the Crown 
Prosecutor ;—a course so well understood and inva¬ 
riably acted on, that the advocate who is made in one 
case, by the simple administration of a fee, a partici¬ 
pator in this nefarious conspiracy, urges without a 
blush, in the next, the very charge which, had it 
any real meaning, would have hopelessly criminated 
himself. This is part of the stock-machinery in courts 
of justice, and passes at its true value ; but as cases 
rise in importance, and will be scrutinized more 
keenly by a wider circle, the common expedients of 
the advocate are subtilized and refined by his genius, 
expanding with circumstances, so as to be far less 
easily seen through. Coloured by the eloquence of 
the orator, the whole proceeding presents the aspect 
of persecution on the one hand, and martyrdom on 
the other. The Crown concentrates its tremendous 
powers in one arm,—tliat of the Attorney-General. 



44 


It clothes him in a panoply of offensive and defensive 
armour, and, from the mere love of tyranny, launches 
him, battle-axe in hand, like some giant of romance, 
against the persons of one or two unfortunate indi¬ 
viduals, whose cause, probably, some chivalrous bar¬ 
rister takes up with disinterested warmth, from the 
absolute impossibility of resisting the impulse of his 
feelings. This would be all very well, if it was set 
to the account of ordinary rhetoric, to be as such ad¬ 
mired—and dismissed. But experience has shown 
on a late occasion, how easily intelligence itself is 
entrapped by the hackneyed stratagem. On that oc¬ 
casion the strong exigencies of an imperilled country 
were narrowed into the vindictive malignity of a 
salaried officer. The powers with which the Con¬ 
stitution has invested an honourable functionary for 
the discharge of duties indispensable to the mainte¬ 
nance of public order, and as arduous as they are 
important, were converted into chains of tyranny or 
instruments of torture; and all that represents prin¬ 
ciple, system, ethics, and Christianity, in the organi¬ 
zation of legal machinery, was industriously construed 
into the reckless exercise of power under the influ¬ 
ence of passion. A client—one helpless individual— 
appeared on one side : a grim array of authorities, 
of judges, counsel, police, gaolers, indiscriminately 
massed on the other. What an unequal force !— 
what a gratuitous onslaught!—what an apparatus of 
extermination! Let the Attorney-General abandon 
his prosecution,—what injury is done to him ?— 


45 


What? And has tlie Attorney-General then no 
clients? Is he placed there to badger, to bully, and 
bait the prisoner for his own amusement ? Is there 
no one but himself interested in the issue of the 
trial ? Are there no fainting hearts, no feeble knees, 
tremblingly awaiting the issue of the strife ? Oh, what 
an array do the Attorney-General’s clients present 
in such a case! To think of them might Avell inspire 
dulness itself with eloquence, and tinge the coldest 
technicalities with the glowing colours of the heart. 
True, the prisoner also has many friends and sup¬ 
porters, who wish him well; they are the high hearts 
and strong arms of the community,—men ready to do 
and dare, eager for action, impatient to rush on 
danger, with the steel of strife gleaming from under 
the vesture of peace. But, oh 1 what a different 
aspect does the assembled group bear, whose cause 
the law officer of the Crown pleads, in asking jus¬ 
tice against the promoters of insurrection! Amongst 
its members, it is true, there is, thank God, many 
a brave spirit and powerful arm, — not the less 
brave because it quails at the thoughts of civil 
bloodshed ; not the less powerful because it is ex¬ 
ercised in the arts of industry, or the labours of the 
field, instead of the evolutions of brigand disci¬ 
pline. But the group is made iq^ of other consti¬ 
tuents. The pious, and the patient, and the peace¬ 
ful,—the true philosopher, and the true Christian, 
are there. The humble in heart as well as in po¬ 
sition ; the philanthropist, who carries his love to 


40 


man forth into life, and acts up to the lofty designa¬ 
tion he bears ; the patriot, who sees in his country 
not a shapeless aggregate of incoherent units, but a 
society bound together by equitable laws, systema¬ 
tized by political, social, and moral organization, 
dignified by liberal and enlightened institutions, 
and ennobled by magnanimity, virtue, and Chris¬ 
tianity,—such are among them. There, too, may 
be seen the manly labourer in each of the various 
fields of human cultivation ; from the glebe which 
is so without a metaphor, to that wliich can only 
be designated as such in its most exalted and 
sublime sense, — science, literature, poetry :—the 
student, who scorns the idea of attempting to con¬ 
trol masses of his felloAV-men before he has learned 
to know himself, and toiled up the ascent which is 
the only legitimate way to true eminence. There, 
less prominently seen, stand the helpless and hapless 
families of the half-implicated peasant,—the terrified 
children, the miserable parents, the distracted wife,— 
whose agony concentrates in a single groan the full 
power of that language which the genius and fluency 
of the advocate can only imperfectly embody in 
words,—which eloquence itself can but paint at se¬ 
cond hand: there they are, mutely pleading in the 
person of one legal functionary. Yes,—and more 
than these. The fair speculator, whose honest calcu¬ 
lations have failed him, and left him to ruin, in the 
darkness of a crisis which baffled all anticipation; 
the beggared artist, with the elaborate creations of 



47 


his chisel orpencil thrust aside in scorn or indifference 
in the ferocity of epidemic excitement; the versatile 
genius, who combines the triumphs of art with those 
of archmology and literature, and wears excellence 
in all with the amiable and most diffident bearing 
of a true philosopher, yet whose gentle pursuits, al¬ 
though they must confer immortal fame upon him 
hereafter, are, in the rage and roar of the strife, un¬ 
able to make their modest claim for present support 
heard or recognised:—such, too, are amongst the 
clients of the Attorney-General. But it is the fashion 
to say, and of late the custom to believe, that the 
“ right honourable gentleman” is a Goliath, stalking 
forth from the ranks of the Philistines in harness 
of brass to defy the armies of Israel, and make each 
innocent stripling who takes up a stone out of the 
brook, food for the fowls of the air. 

What is the Attorney-General to me? He may 
reject my support with indignation if he be a rigid 
member of his Church. Were he superseded to¬ 
morrow, it is not the man I would follow, but his 
successor. I defend the Attorney-General as such, 
and because he has a great trust committed to him, 
in which I am concerned. 

The question of Kepeal, at all events, is dead. 
That is a fact no longer to be controverted. You 
may separate the countries altogether, but you can¬ 
not now cut asunder the parliamentary cable, and 
hope that Ireland will ride out the storm by the 


48 


painter of monarchy. Kepeal is defunct—extinct. It 
has been despatched by as many wounds as Csesar, 
and by as many parties. It has had its throat cut, its 
back broken, its neck twisted—let me add, its poc¬ 
kets rifled. It has a pike in its heart, and a bullet 
in its brain. It would indeed have been buried long 
ago, but that a society of gentlemen in this city have 
retained it above ground for some purposes of their 
own, not very easy to be fathomed, it is true, but 
apparently of the last importance, judging from the 
earnestness of their proceedings. Who that has wit¬ 
nessed it, indeed, can forget the spectacle exhibited 
from time to time within their theatre, when the man¬ 
gled body of REPEAL has been produced upon the 
table, and submitted to a species of galvanizing pro¬ 
cess, which conferred a grotesque vitality on the few 
sinews left unlacerated, setting the eyes rolling, the 
teeth chattering, and convulsing the limbs into a sort 
of ghastly caricature of a dance ? Around the un¬ 
conscious automaton the Protestant Repealers ga¬ 
ther, enjoying the exhibition, remarking upon the 
performer’s evident health, his mighty muscula¬ 
rity, his intellectual expression of countenance, his 
exquisite proportions; and ready, one and all, to 
insert the creature’s name in the lease of their na¬ 
tional prospects and hopes; while the assassins them¬ 
selves, admitted to the entertainment, grin over their 
shoulders ! 

Repeal is dead,—and a mighty and terrible ghost 
haunts its home. But I believe in my soul, that if 


49 


the image is vast it is unsubstantial; and that, if it 
assumes the attitude of menace now in the gloomy 
night-time of European convulsion, it will retire into 
obscurity before the return of the same blessed light 
which drives beasts of prey to their dens, and invites 
man forth to his labour. 

I believe, moreover, that if Eepeal had not been 
dead as an argument, heew seen through, exposed, and 
detected, the ghost of dismemberment would never 
have walked the earth. Every year the absurdity 
of the Repeal question was forcing itself more and 
more resistlessly on the conviction of the reflective 
portion of the community; and exactly in the same 
proportion did the machinations of the separatists 
unfold themselves. According as the argument grew 
weaker, the menace of force became more open. If 
the argument had been a sound and tenable one, in 
a constitution such as our’s, it must have gained 
ground. It was thus that Emancipation, Reform, and 
other great measures, worked their way into the pub¬ 
lic conviction; and it is only by endeavouring to 
make out that England has, for some unknown rea¬ 
son, not alone a personal disregard, but a personal an¬ 
tipathy to us, that the advocates of the measure can 
account for its continued rejection. 

I believe I have tired my friends by this time. 
Menenius Agrippa, though acknowledged by the 
citizens of Rome to be “ worthy Menenius, one that 
hath always loved the people,’' was long-winded 

G 


enough. Nevertheless, he must, seizing this oppor¬ 
tunity, say a word for himself 

He has been misrepresented as to his statements. 
But, under existing circumstances, and as they prin¬ 
cipally affect himself, he will, as he said, pass that 
over. 

He has been, however, misrepresented as to his 
relations, and the capacity in which he appears be¬ 
fore his countrymen. It has been said that he is an 
agent of the Government,—nay, that he is the Go¬ 
vernment! Now, it so happens, that if there be any 
curiosity to peep behind the mask of his incognito, it 
is exhibited, he is credibly informed, by members or 
attaches of the Government itself, who have, he pre¬ 
sumes, no notion that they should be defended only 
just so far as it serves his argument, and supercili¬ 
ously overlooked on their own account. This it is due 
to himself—and them—to mention. If it could be be¬ 
lieved that, with the opinions he has avowed, he could 
afford his countenance—or even jnask —to a party 
which for years submitted to be held in office by the 
permission of a man who was to keep Ireland quiet for 
them,—whose principles and conduct they secretly 
condemned, and who openly expressed his contempt 
of them and their measures,—a man, whose life-long 
machinations have produced the present disastrous 
state of things in this country, and whose career should 
ever be taken in connexion with them;—to a party 
which, instead of grasping “ Repeal” by the throat at 
the first as a felon and a traitor, suffered it to prowl 


51 


about the purlieus of the Constitution until the gang 
was mustered, and the burglary planned ;—to men 
who, in order first to gain a little popularity, and 
then to preserve a show of consistency, suffered Ire¬ 
land to re-arm herself, for purposes avowedly uncon¬ 
stitutional ;—to a ministry who laud and magnify the 
body of ecclesiastics, the principles and conduct of 
which he has here, as at the first, so freely scruti¬ 
nized ;—if, lie repeats, this can be believed, he has 
certainly failed to impress the public as he wished, as 
far as his personal character is concerned. 

But there are liigher considerations than party 
ones. Certain acts are just and necessary, emanating 
no matter from whom. Certain men are noble and 
of an unimpeachable integrity, no matter in whose 
ranks they are found. 

The present policy respecting Ireland is right 
beyond question; and Lord Clarendon has earned 
the respect and good-will of this country during a 
crisis of unexampled importance. The time is not 
come when his policy can be seen in its true light. 
In the struggle of the conflict few can understand 
all that has been dared, and all that has been re¬ 
frained from. But a day will arrive,—it is the hope 
and belief of Menenius that it will,—when Ireland, 
prosperous, peaceful, and happy, at length finally and 
for ever fused into the mass of Great Britain, shall 
look back at this, her last and most deadly struggle 
for separation, and admit with gratitude that to one 
MAN, under God, was due the result which placed 


* 



52 


her where she might fulfil her true destiny, as a con¬ 
stituent part of the empire marked out by Nature 
within the circuit of the British Isles. 

I am once more a pamphleteer. It became neces¬ 
sary in these few pages to go into theories more than 
I could have wished. If this little tract prove “ in 
time” to help, by its tiny “ stitch,” to hold the robe 
of empire together, I may, perhaps, by and by, say 
a word in my own plain way on more practical 
matters. 


THE END. 


MENENIUS TO THE PEOPLE. 


Fellow-countrymen !—You have long been listen¬ 
ing to men who said they would do you good. I ask 
you —have they done so ? 

Now I want you to listen to me. Nobody knows 
who I am. I choose to remain unknown. If I speak 
sense, I know you will for your own sakes attend to 
what I say, no matter who I may be,—for it is about 
your concerns that I write. 

Eecollect, I intend these words for the lower 
classes. I have already written some pamphlets ad¬ 
dressed to the middle classes, although you have 
probably never heard of them. In the opinions I 
put forward in them, some Irishmen have agreed 
with me, and some have disagreed with me. Now I 
want to see whether I cannot write something, in 
which I shall have nearly every honest Irishman on 
my side. 

The reason I address you in particular is, because 
I think that at this moment it is in your power, 
quite as much as in that of any other class, to pro- 

A 2 




4 


mote the interests of our country. But what I write 
may, I think, be read by persons above your class. 

You now see that war is out of the question. If 
you seek to disturb the public peace, you will either 
have a musket-ball lodged in your body, or be your¬ 
selves lodged in the body of a jail —a disagreeable 
alternative. Whether it be right or wrong that you 
should be thus coerced,—whether you be used ill or 
well,—is nothing to the matter. There exists in every 
state such a thing as power, vested, rightfully or 
wrongfully, somewhere or other; and the Govern¬ 
ment of this country, the visible representative of 
power, commands peace, and will enforce it. 

You must, therefore, be quiet at your peril. 

It is because it is come to this that I now ask a 
hearing. I take it for granted that you have laid 
down your arms, if you had ever taken them up ; 
and look round, asking,—what’s to be done next ? 

* Let me tell you here at the outset, that I have a 
way of speaking of my own. I am determined, for 
your sakes, to avoid the high and poetical style of 
those men—and they were clever men too—who 
brought you into your present condition. I have my 
own reasons for this, which I hope you will under¬ 
stand before I have done. But I want also to avoid 
addressing you as a schoolmaster does a row of simple 
boys, or a father a group of gaping children. I do 
not want to make a sermon of these pages, or to as¬ 
sume an air of superior wisdom, lowering its style 
so as to make itself understood by ignorance and 



stupidity. I know right well who are listening to 
me. I know that you are, humble in degree, and, 
many of you, unlearned enough. But I know, too, 
that you are men, and Irishmen ; and I will not in¬ 
sult you by supposing that you are fools, because I 
take upon me to advise you. I speak to you as man 
to men,—openly, freely, earnestly, cordially; anxious 
to do yon good if I can, and to deserve your good¬ 
will for my good intention,, whether I can or not. 

One thing we must all feel the happier for,—that 
peace and security have for the present been restored 
to our unhappy land with so little expenditure of 
blood. I do not think there is a man among you who, 
if left to himself, would wish to see it otherwise. But 
no one, I am sure, three months ago, would have 
believed a prophet, if he had predicted that things 
would have turned out thus. How Ireland should 
pass from open, armed preparation on both sides, to 
a general state of comparative tranquillity, without 
going through the intermediate stage of carnage,— 
how we should cross the Red Sea without wetting 
the sole of our foot,—would have been a problem 
that no man alive could have resolved. 

Providence has brought the miracle to pass, how¬ 
ever : and our gratitude is justly due to Him who 
has divided the waters, and opened a future of hope 
to us once again, without marking the past in our 
memories by scenes not to be blotted out. 

There has been a great deal to harass, mislead, and 


6 


exasperate you. The man must be a fool, or a brute, 
who does not admit that. You have been schooled 
from your cradle, by parents and teachers, to believe 
yourselves wronged. You saw yourselves behind the 
greater part of Europe in prosperity and civilization, 
which was humiliating ; but you saw yourselves in 
these particulars behind the greater part of the empire 
in which you lived, which seemed unjust, and was 
therefore galling to you. Wise men told you that 
it was unjust that you should be behind England in 
these respects, and that you had a right to be angry. 
They said, moreover, that it was an indifferent Par¬ 
liament and a hostile Government that occasioned 
this; and that the way to overtake the world, and rival 
England, was to obtain a Parliament for yourselves. 
You, of course, believed them, because they under¬ 
took that you should be one of the greatest and 
richest nations for your size in the world, if you 
could only manage to gain your point. 

Perhaps they were quite right in what they told 
you. I am not going to dispute with them. All I 
say is, that you thought they were right, and thought 
you had yourselves a right to be angry, when you 
found that the Imperial Parliament would not listen 
to them, as you did. 

But though you were occasionally discontented 
enough, there was nothing the matter which a little 
judicious exercise of concession on the one hand, and 
restraint on the other, could not set right; and ac¬ 
cordingly, in spite of the demonstrations of 1844, 


tilings looked on the whole encouragingly for tlie 
country up to the year 1846. Then, indeed, a calamity 
occurred, which reached its highest pitch in 1847, 
and which threatened to plunge the country into utter 
ruin,—a calamity arising immediately from natural 
causes, though we cannot tell how they operated, but 
idtimately referable to the mysterious and inscruta¬ 
ble dispensation of God. None of you pretend to 
believe that man had a hand in the famine; though 
many of you may recollect that some of the Journals 
which circulated amongst you actually went the 
length of insinuating something of the kind. 

An immense sura of money was instantly required 
to relieve distress, and save life. The landlords, re¬ 
presenting property of which they only enjoyed an 
inconsiderable portion, and already rated for your 
support according to the full value of what they re¬ 
presented, were themselves rather the objects of 
charity than the sources from which relief could be 
derived. Now see how British connexion stood you 
in stead. A sum of ten millions was considered ne¬ 
cessary to be raised. Where was such an amount to 
be found in Ireland ? You must bear it in mind, that 
our commercial credit, never very firm, was then in 
its lowest state of depression, owing to the embarrass¬ 
ment and bankruptcy which had followed upon the 
over-speculation in railways and other schemes of the 
few previous years ; and which told with particular 
severity upon Ireland, where we are in the habit of car¬ 
rying on business with a smaller capital than is usual 


8 


in other countries. We actually had it not. We 
must either have determined on robbing some peo¬ 
ple of all they possessed, and reducing them to beg¬ 
gary and starvation, in order to support the rest, or 
have allowed nine-tenths of the poor peasantry in the 
distressed districts to die without assistance 

But, fortunately for Ireland, the Articles of the 
Union were in force, and we had a right to our 
proportion of British aid. Ten millions^ as I have 
said, were considered necessary for the purpose ; and 
Parliament agreed that, of that ten millions, more 
than nine must come from Great Britain ; that is, 
that she should supply more than her contingent. 
We had, therefore, here in Ireland, relief actually af¬ 
forded to the amount of ten millions, at an expense to 
ourselves of less than one million. If this be not a 
substantial proof of the value of British connexion, I 
do not know what is. 

I am almost ashamed of being obliged to remind 
my countrymen of a benefit. I thought gratitude was 
the virtue they loved to be distinguished by. Have 
you forgotten what was given to you, as well as what 

'i 

wa's voted and advanced ? History does not present 
anything to equal it. The amount separately contri¬ 
buted through the British Association, and under 
the Queen’s letter, for Irish distress, was no less than 
£362,320. The General Central Relief Committee 
in Dublin received upwards of £50,000, principally 
from English sources. The Quakers contributed, in 
all, the enormous sum of £168,000. Charitable la- 


9 


dies collected £11,465 ; and the freight and charges 
alone which Government had to pay on supplies of 
food and clothing by benevolent individuals and so¬ 
cieties, principally English, amounted to more than 
£50,000 !—and these are only a few of the most 
remarkable items ! 

But, all this time, what you were feeling was hun¬ 
ger. The discontent that had been fostered for years, 
seemed at length to be justified. You looked round 
you on rotting crops and blackening fields. If you 
had prided yourself on an humble but manly inde¬ 
pendence, it now cut you to the quick to find your¬ 
self obliged to accept your rations like degraded 
paupers, in whom shame has disappeared with self- 
respect. Your feelings might have been allowed for, 
—even excused; they ought never to have been 
tampered with. 

But they were. All that genius and ingenuity 
•could devise to encourage and deepen the exaspe¬ 
ration you felt, was put in practice upon you. In 
your misery and debasement you were exhorted— 
not to resignation, as under a judgment of heaven, 
but to revenge, as under an outrage of man. You 
were taught to be ashamed of those virtues in your¬ 
selves which would have dignified if they could not 
alleviate your miseries, and to spurn the outstretched 
hand of the generous people who pressed forward 
to minister to your necessities. This error of the 
heart you were schooled into,—an error which Irish¬ 
men ought instinctively to have seen through and 



10 


recoiled from ;—and besides, you were argued into 
an error of the head. You ought to have been wise 
enough to see that you had no special reason to be 
incensed at British connexion, at the very moment 
when that connexion had gained you a clear nine 
millions towards the relief of vour destitution ; and 
moreover, that no human being was to blame because 
a population which lived on the potato found itself 
without food when that root failed. I add this last 
error, because I cannot help thinking that you were 
more angry at being obliged to accept as charity 
what kept you alive, than if you had been left to die ; 
so much easier is it to bear distress itself than humi¬ 
liation. 

You ought to have been able to see through these 
advisers of your’s before they got you into difficulty 
and danger. I will tell you why. Because they tried 
to gain their objects hy making you had men. They 
laboured to instil the worst principles and rouse the 
worst passions of your nature. They sought to make 
you look upon misfortunes as wounds, and deaths as 
murders. They called resignation cowardice, and 
revenge courage. They sneered at your religion, 
whether it was Catholic or Protestant; reviled you 
for your virtues, and threatened to make even your 
neutrality unsafe. They taught you to look upon 
property as plunder, and upon the upper classes as 
your prey. All the bonds of society it was their 
avowed object to loose ; and their mission they 
would have considered unruhiHed, until they had 


11 


sent you forth into the world, brutalized, with your 
hand against every man, and every man’s hand 
against you. 

I say, you ought to have seen through these men. 
I am going to give you a further reason, though you 
will not, perhaps, be so ready to accept it as a good 
one. It is, because they flattered you. Now, although 
you allowed yourselves practically to be played upon, 
I believe you have good sense enough to admit the 
truth of the maxim, that you should always sus¬ 
pect the man who praises you to your face. Such a 
man, in nine cases out of ten, is trying to take you 
in. If you hear a fellow in the market, who has any¬ 
thing to sell, telling you that you are the best judge 
of a purchase in the world, you may be certain he 
wants to cheat you. Any of you who have sat in 
a jury-box may remember that when the lawyer 
had a bad case, and wanted a verdict for his client, 
he told you that you were the most upright and ho¬ 
nest men upon the face of the earth. And so it is all 
the world over. The practice is so well known that 
there is a name for it. It is termed cajolery. The 
English familiarly call it humbug. We have more 
than one word to express it in Irish. 

This is precisely the plan your late leaders adopted 
with you. For twenty years you have been told that 
you are the finest peasantry in the world ; that the 
sun never lighted on so noble, generous, and power¬ 
ful a population; that your virtues in peace are only 
equalled by your bravery in war ; and that no bles- 


12 


sings which the bounty of fortune could lavish upon 
you, could overpay your deserts. 

It is not because I want to deny all this, or any of 
it, that I point to it; but because the circumstance of 
its being so eternally rung in your ears argued de¬ 
sign, and ought to have begotten suspicion. That 
cunning old monarch, Louis Philippe, never heaped 
such an excess of affectionate flattery upon our be¬ 
loved Queen, as when he was employed in managing 
a piece of business of his own in Spain, which he 
suspected would annoy Her Majesty very much, and 
the knowledge of which he wanted to keep from her 
as long as possible. Your leaders flattered you, in 
order to blind you ; and they sought to blind you, 
because they wanted you to do mischief to your¬ 
selves and others : thus offering a tribute to your vir¬ 
tue at the expense of your sagacity. Every day the 
double process was going forward. In proportion as 
they conceived they had sapped your social virtues, 
did they cry up your national importance. Accord¬ 
ing as they calculated on having rendered you indi¬ 
vidually criminal, they preached the gospel of your 
power ; and not till they believed they had carried 
the work of personal debasement to its utmost, did 
they announce the final doctrine, that the mass they 
had thus, as they thought, reduced below the level 
of humanity, constituted the lawful and absolute so¬ 
vereignty of the nation. 

' In one of my former pamphlets I put before re¬ 
flecting men, in a number of distinct propositions, 


13 


what I conceive to be the true nature, source, and 
end of sovereignty and liberty. I think a very few 
words might make the thing tolerably clear to any¬ 
body’s understanding. It is plain that sovereignty 
and liberty cannot exist together: if either be com¬ 
plete, the other must be wholly absent. They can 
only be combined when they are both of them li¬ 
mited. Whether it be a king, or a council, or a peo¬ 
ple that be sovereign, in all these cases no member of 
the community can be absolutely free. And, on the 
other hand, if a man be in a state of perfect liberty, 
there can be no sovereignty anywhere else, even in 
the people of which he is a member. . No man in a 
community can be perfectly free, without every one 
about him being a slave. For suppose there be an 
hundred men, and they assume complete sovereignty, 
it is plain that each one of them can only possess the 
one-hundredth part of that sovereignty, and in the 
other ninety-nine hundredths he must have no free 
will at all. Just as -when an hundred forces act 
upon one body, they drive it, not in the direction of 
any one individual force among the hundred, but in 
a direction resulting from all the individual forces 
combined. 

The doctrine of complete liberty, then, is a silly 
absurdity, which can deceive no one but the savage 
or the fool. We are every one of us, high and low, 
rich and poor, from the sovereign at the head to the 
beggar at the foot of the scale, in a state of social re¬ 
lationship, in which our powers on the one hand are 


14 


ever balanced by our duties on the other; and we 
gravitate towards each other, as astronomers know 
the heavenly bodies do, in a degree proportioned to 
our weight in the social system. What I want to 
show you is, that no change, gradual or violent, could 
get us out of this influence. Let us remain a mo¬ 
narchy, or become a republic, as individuals we must 
still be only free in a fractional degree ; the main 
body of society, whatever you may please to call it, 
the masses, the million, the people, must, by the 
very constitution of society itself, independently of 
any arbitrary or political arrangement, be in a state 
of subjection. 

The moment you have this explained, you can 
understand what I have no doubt has puzzled you 
—how it is that men of your own class in France, 
after all their revolutions, and in America, after their 
first and final one, have not a whit more influence in 
their respective countries than you have in youFs. 
They talk very big about “ liberty,” to be sure ; 
they wear cockades in their hats, and sing songs 
through the streets in its praise. But they are still 
the hardest worked, the worst paid, the poorest fed 
portion of the community, which you may be per¬ 
fectly certain they would not be contented to remain, 
if they were indeed the sovereign power. 

I Avill tell you where sovereignty does exist. It ex¬ 
ists, as the life does in the body, in the State taken as a 
whole, as one organized and working community, hav¬ 
ing its parts distinct, but united, and all acting in har- 


15 


inonious relation one with the other. And I will also 
tell you that the arrangements of our Constitution 
liave been framed much more advantageously for 
yoiir liberty, than any which your leaders have 
dreamt of devising. You have often heard of the 
great American patriot, Washington. Now, Wash¬ 
ington once said, that means such as you have been 
lately adopting for obtaining your purposes are ex¬ 
tremely dangerous to liberty, because they tend to 
take power from the delegates of the nation at large, 
and throw it into the hands of a few ambitious men, 
who in all probability will, or at all events may in 
the end, use it asfainst those who have conferred it 
on them. 

A great number of you do not know why I call 
myself Menenius. I will tell you. The individual 
who actually bore the name, and who had a second 
name, Agrippa, was a citizen of Eome, at a time 
when the government of that country was repub¬ 
lican. The people had got it into their heads, as 
you lately did, that they were sovereign in an abso¬ 
lute sense; and, stung by some real and some fancied 
grievances, separated themselves altogether from the 
higher orders, and quitted their native city. After 
many attempts on the part of the nobles to win them 
back to their senses and their homes, Menenius, who 
was himself of plebeian—or humble—extraction, 
undertook to reason with them ;—but instead of mak- 
' ing a set speech, he related to them a fable. 


I will give it to you in the words of our illustrious 
countryman, Oliver Goldsmith, who has rendered it 
from the original Latin. 

“In times of old, when every part of the body could 
think for itself, and each had a separate will of its 
own, they all, with common consent, resolved to re¬ 
volt against the belly ; they knew no reason, they 
said, why they should toil from morning till night in 
its service, while the belly, in the mean time, lay at 
its ease in the midst of them all, and indolently grew 
fat upon their labours. Accordingly, one and all, 
they agreed to defend it no more. The feet vowed 
they would carry it no longer; the hands vowed they 
would feed it no longer ; and the teeth averred they 
would not chew a morsel of meat, though it were 
placed between them. Thus resolved, they all for 
some time showed their spirit, and kept their word; 
but soon they found that, instead of mortifying the 
belly by these means, they only undid themselves. 
They languished for a while, and perceived, when 
too late, that it was owing to the belly that they 
had strength to work, or courage to mutiny.” 

Menenius knew his men, and gained his point. 
Though virtually slaves, the Romans returned to their 
homes and duty. I think the fable would apply with 
far more justice to you, who are free ; and it is be¬ 
cause most of the arguments I have used, and intend 
to use, are included more or less completely in its 
scope, that I originally pitched upon the name of its 
inventor. 


17 


You see my idea is (and I believe you will find 
that most sensible men who have studied the subject, 
and speak impartially, without any object of their 
own to gain by it, agree with me), that our Consti¬ 
tution is not a system in which there is one class, or 
set, or party governing, and all the rest governed ; 
but a great machine, including the whole population 
in its details, in which each member has certain func¬ 
tions assigned to him, some of them governing func¬ 
tions, some functions of obedience. This body politic 
—as I may call it, to distinguish it from the mere 
masses which are thrown together without order, and 
are only to be estimated by their numbers—this body 
politic, I say, it is, which really constitutes the sove¬ 
reignty of a free state such as our’s. And if those 
who are assigned duties of more extended trust and 
more complicated difficulty be envied by persons 
whose lot is cast in an humbler sphere, merely be¬ 
cause they enjoy dignities or emoluments which these 
do not, they may fairly silence their detractors by the 
old, but not the less appropriate fable of “ The Belly 
and Members.’^ 

You see I am taking some pains to impress on you 
these notions of mine. My reason is this,—that I see 
plainly you need to have your ideas set right on the 
subject of government. Your leaders have been now 
for some years clouding over the real principles of 
free government by the colouring of their speeches 
and writings, and have put out of your sight the sim¬ 
ple truth, which is, that all government must be in 

B 



18 


some sort a defective system, and that as long as wills, 
principles, prejudices, dispositions, tempers, habits, 
and actions, differ as they do, such a thing as liberty, 
in the sense they use the term, cannot exist for any 
one individual. The very existence of law shows 
that liberty is not. Law is nothing more or less than 
a restriction of individual liberty. But no state could 
exist an hour without laws ; so that in no state can 
liberty, in this sense, exist. I am now speaking of 
the “ liberty” of your late leaders, and of our turbu¬ 
lent neighbours, the French. There is a liberty, in¬ 
deed, which ought to exist, and without which no 
state can live and flourish. This liberty we enjoy. 
It is the liberty to have a due share in the making of 
our own laws,—to be ourselves parties to imposing 
restraints upon our own freedom. This, I need 
scarcely observe, we possess, in a representative sys¬ 
tem such as our’s, in which every person who can be 
supposed to be capable of forming an opinion on the 
subject, does directly, and in his degree, contribute 
to the constitution of that assembly to whom is in¬ 
trusted the making of laws. 

But even here it may be worth while to apply the 
principle I spoke of, and show you how small a part 
you have, and must ever have, individually, in the 
making of your laws;—and observe, by you^ I do not 
mean you Irish, or you British, as an exception, but 
you of the lower classes all the world over;—by the 
working of those natural forces which influence com¬ 
munities in general. Let us suppose an election about 


19 


to take place for a member of Parliament. We will 
assume that the franchise is extended as was lately 
contemplated; that there are four times the number 
of electors amongst us that there are now. You, or 
I, may be one of the humblest of the individuals 
forming the constituency. Let us compare our actual 
influence with that which what we may call the ideal 
of liberty would give. Some person, known to us, 
perhaps, by name alone,—to whom vre are unknown, 
even by name,—is nominated by the public voice — 
that is, by a few influential individuals. We hear what 
our neighbours have to say about him, and which¬ 
ever way the herd goes, we either choose or are con¬ 
strained to follow. We shoulder our way to the poll, 
name the candidate whom other and controlling in¬ 
fluences have put forward, have our vote entered as 
a unit among thousands, and return, unregarded and 
forgotten, to boast of the privileges we enjoy! Such 
is the amount of our free-will. What would perfect 
liberty be ? 

The most sensible man I ever heard of on this 
point was an honest working iron-founder, who had 
a vote in a borough, and was visited in the foundry 
by the favourite candidate, wdio expected, no doubt, 
as a matter of course, to have the dingy operative 
on his list of supporters. 

He accordingly addressed him in the usual style, 
descanted on the liberty of election, and requested 
the honour of his vote and interest. 

B 2 


20 


“ And I am free to vote for any body I please ?” 
demanded the voter. 

“ Certainly; itis the glory of the British constitution.” 

“ Then I shall vote for Black Peter, the moulder, 
over yonder,—the man that faces the ladle.” 

“ Black Peter?” 

“Ay; Black Peter. There’s not such another man 
in the borough. He stands the white heat like clay, 
and never was known to wink at a spark. You may 
attend to the concerns of the nation, but Black 
Peter knows what we want, and will look after our 
foundry interests better than any amongst ye all.” 

“ But you know you must vote for me, or for my 
opponent.” 

“ And you call that freedom! You take and melt 
me down, lift me to the mouth of the mould you 
have made yourselves, and turn me over, crying, 
‘ now run where you please !’ I’ll keep my vote, 
gentlemen. Now go and ask Black Peter for liis^ 

Thus you see how little liberty (in one sense) any 
elector can possess. And yet an election is the most 
favourable case that can be taken; because in it you 
have, the humblest of you, as much power, through 
your vote^ as the highest member of society. It counts 
one; and so does the great man’s, and no more. Re¬ 
collect I am not quite prepared to say whether it is 
wise that it should be so, or whether it is not pre¬ 
cisely this undiscriminating quality which prevents 
an indefinite extension of the suffrage. But as to 
the fact, you see how it is, and how little power after 


21 


all a man in an inferior station can by any possi¬ 
bility have in an organized community, however 
free. I am anxious you should understand this, be¬ 
cause I really do think that it is of consequence that 
we should know on what step of the ladder we stand. 
It is not only a bad thing, because it is ignorance, but 
a practical disadvantage, to be mistaken in a matter 
like this. Many of you are probably aware that, up 
to a few centuries ago, it was universally believed 
that this earth formed the centre of the universe, and 
that the whole system of the heavens rolled round us 
every four-and-twenty hours. When a wise man, 
called Copernicus, ventured to assert, as the result 
of his observations, that instead of being in the 
centre, we ourselves revolved round a body, which 
itself probably formed only a part of some still vaster 
system, men were inclined to think themselves af¬ 
fronted by the theory, and were quite incensed at the 
idea of the whole world being pushed on one side, 
as it were, by one learned individual. Yet, mark the 
practical consequence of the truth which humbled 
us;—it was by this very rectification of our place 
in the starry creation, that subsequent philosophers 
were able so to perfect astronomical science, as, 
amongst other practical discoveries, to make it an easy 
task for the mariner to ascertain what had always 
been the great difficulty in navigation—his longi¬ 
tude,—and thus to assure himself of his position, and 
regulate his course accordingly. 

And so it must be with you. As long as you en- 


22 


tertain a mistaken opinion of your powers and posi¬ 
tion, you will not even enjoy as much power, either 
personally or nationally, as you actually possess. Far 
be it from me to advocate what has been called pas¬ 
sive obedience, or to discourage the honourable in¬ 
dependence which should make every citizen of a 
free state jealous of his liberties as of his reputa¬ 
tion. Were I indeed an inhabitant of Persia, or 
China, I might preach very different doctrines from 
these ; but here, in Ireland, as an Irishman, I really 
do feel a dread lest your mistakes of this year should 
work against you in this way more speedily and fa¬ 
tally than you are aware of, and in a direction the 
reverse of what you calculated on. You are, I tell 
you, putting yourselves in great peril. You indivi¬ 
dually enjoy, at this moment, less liberty than you 
have ever done since the Emancipation Act of 1829. 
You have been unruly, and have yourselves provoked 
a struggle which has thrown you helpless into the 
hands of power; and, as I say, it is the keen appre¬ 
hension lest what has been had recourse to as a tem¬ 
porary expedient, at a moment of danger and alarm, 
should be drawn into a precedent, and become a 
permanent principle in the government of Ireland, 
that makes me impress the truth upon you. I do 
see danger. I do recognise, in this period, a critical 
juncture. I discern the rocks before us; and 1 cry 
aloud to you to let Prudence take the helm. 

I set out by saying that our destinies rest mainly 
with you. I repeat that assertion. See what you 


23 


have gained by being disorderly. You have got the 
handcuffs on. You have placed them on all your 
neighbours,—on me ,—for we are all alike tied by the 
stringency of the present law. Eenew your former 
courses, and the necessity of the State will impose 
fresh restrictions, or make the old ones permanent. 
Gain a sense of your true duties and interests, think 
as sensible men, and act as sober ones, and the bonds 
will in due time drop silently from our hands ; and 
we shall embrace once more, in the freedom of a con¬ 
stitution which, I verily believe, offers to the com¬ 
munity the extreme amount of liberty consistent with 
.human infirmity on the one side, and human happi¬ 
ness on the other. 

The mention of our French neighbours reminds 
me of the three words they have taken up as their 
motto since February last: “ Liberty—Equality— 
Fraternity.” 

Now, their ‘‘Liberty” I have pulled to pieces 
pretty well, I think. “ Equality” is the next word; 
and as it has a very taking sound, we may as well 
see what it means, in the sense in which ordinary 
people, such as you and I, might be expected to 
understand it. 

There are two ways to look at the word,—either 
as regards the artificial distinctions of society, or the 
individual rights of citizenship. Now, as to your 
place in society, no two amongst you ever were, or 
ever could be equal. Inequality is the very law 


24 


whicTi constitutes society. You are unequal by 
nature ;—you were born unequal;—you were bred 
unequally;—you perpetuate and widen your recip¬ 
rocal inequality. If any two of you happen to be 
equal in the morning, the chances are a thousand to 
one you will be unequal before evening. 

Hence, society having made you and continuing 
you unequal, the spirit of our laws comes in and 
confirms while it tempers this inequality, by mark- 
insr and recos^nisinff the distinctions of rank and 
property on the one hand ; and by breaking down 
the barriers that might confine the possession or 
acquisition of either to any one class of individuals 
on the other. It transfers the inequality from the 
person to the thing, and allows no disparity to exist, 
except where justice and the nature of society have 
already created it;—and it is, let me tell you, the 
only true principle of legislation to follow the laws of 
nature, which are the laws of eternal truth. 

But the Frenchman of the present day fancies 
himself too wise for all this. He says, man and man 
are alike, so they ought to be equal. Your ought 
is a great argument with men who forget there is 
such a word as is. Men ought to be^good,'but unfor¬ 
tunately they too often are not. Accordingly, to 
carry out their argument, they set about breaking 
up society, and casting it, like road-stuff, upon the 
highway of their republic, there to bind, if it will, 
into a compact and level surface. I shall be greatly 
surprised if some of those who expect to pass 


25 


smoothly over it by and by do not get a jolt which 
will try their springs, if it do not break their bones. 

I said there was another way to look at the word 
Equality,—namely, with respect to our rights as citi¬ 
zens; and, in this sense, the British Constitution does 
in fact look upon every member of the community 
with an equal regard. It needs no lawyer to prove 
this. If one man kills another, be the slayer the 
proudest peer of the realm, and the slain the humblest, 
the poorest, the most abject, the most degraded of 
his kind,—that murderer must die. The life of the 
peasant is, in the eye of the law, notwithstanding 
the constant insinuations of the suppressed journals 
to the contrary, as valuable as the life of the peer. 

And so in every other case. If a man s house be 
entered, his property stolen, his goods damaged, his 
person attacked,—nay, if a word be said to injure 
him by any one, no matter how much his superior in 

rank,_he has justice done to him, not proportioned to 

the relative stations of the parties, but to the offence. 
If the beggar in his hovel enjoy the light of day 
through a loop-hole in his mud wall, the proudest 
architect, the most extensive company, cannot throw 
up the palace or the factory so as to obstruct it, but 
the law takes his part, and protects his right. Per¬ 
fect equality, as well as perfect impartiality, is the 
glory of our Imperial law; but, let me tell you, such 
was very far from being the case in our old Irish 
canons, and laws called Brehon laws. 

This sort of “equality” you possess quite as fully 




26 


as the Frenchman, who cannot post a placard without 
printing the wonderful word, in the largest type, at 
its head. 

There remains the third, to complete the charm, 
—“ Fraternity.’’ 

This also has two senses. It means, properly, 
brotherhood ; and although our lively neighbours 
have seemed in the majority of their acts since they 
adopted it, to confound it with a word which sounds 
something like it, although it has a different meaning 
—Fratricide,—the killing of a brother or brothers,— 
it may be taken to signify any cordial or neighbourly 
demonstration or feeling,—the shaking of hands,—an 
affectionate embrace,—or any other display of duty 
towards our neighbours; and in this sense I should 
be sorry to think that we were not ready, all of us, 
to “ fraternize.” But that this not the sense in which 
the French understand it, you can learn from their 
own mouths. A clever, bustling young man, named 
Louis Blanc, one of their favourite newspaper writers, 
told us plainly enough some time ago what his idea of 
“ fraternity” was. In the month of February last, 
when to possess a newspaper in Paris was sufficient to 
make a man a cabinet minister, this Louis Blanc was 
elected one of the governors of France, and imme¬ 
diately put his views respecting “ fraternity” in prac¬ 
tice. Now, without going into his plan, it is perhaps 
enough to tell you (what you can easily learn, if you 
choose to read the history of the time) that it was 
this system of his which was the principal cause 



27 


of the bloody insurrection of June last, in which 
the capital city of the nation was made the scene 
of a contest which lasted four days, between four 
hundred thousand citizens, reduced to starvation by 
Louis Blanc’s “ fraternity,” and the rest of the inha¬ 
bitants, assisted by their friends from the country. 

I say, I need not go into his plan; for whatever it 
was, it drove thousands to starvation, and hundreds 
of thousands to murder and rebellion. 

But a knowledge of the facts I have been relatino^ 
to you will enable you to see what, in France, was 
the real meaning of the three glorious words. 

Liberty, with this Mr. Blanc and his friends 
(whom you have heard of, when they made a noise in 
the world, under the name of Communists) meant the 
power of reconstructing society,—that is, of break¬ 
ing down all distinctions between high and low, rich 
and poor,—confiscating all property, of course, to do 
so ; and then building up a new structure of the 
materials, in which the grand principle should be 
Equality;— which signified that everybody should 
be a labourer; that all everybody earned should be 
thrown into a common stock ; that everybody, let 
him be clever or stupid, active or lazy, strong or 
weak, should receive the same amount of wages, and 
an equal participation of profits out of that stock. But, 
as men might naturally ask whether it was quite 
fair that the idle should be paid at an equal rate 
with the industrious, and that the industrious sliould 
' work for the idle, a third term was introduced— 
Fraternity ;—of which the idea was, that under 



28 


the new system a spirit of brotherhood would spring 
up, and actuate the entire community, inducing each 
to do his best, and thus insuring the performance of 
work in the most effective and economical manner, so 
as to realize the anticipated “profit.” I cannot help 
thinking that these Frenchmen, in addition to having 
made a mistake in supposing that men who have to 
make up a sum of money among them will each work 
more industriously than men who have a direct interest 
in their labour competition ^—a mistake which our 
Eundale tenancies will enable you to see through,— 
were also guilty of a piece of deception, in placing the 
three words in the order they have done ; and I will 
tell you why. The last word, Fraternity^ took for 
granted a principle in our natures which might or 
might not exist. It had to be proved that men would 
do their best, when they had no immediate or direct 
interest in doing so. 

Now, if the fact be,—as it has turned out,—that 
the principle does not exist, then the Equality^ which 
is based on the principle, must go with it. 

And Liberty which allows men to put such false 
theories into practice must be withheld by the uni¬ 
versal consent of society. 

tience, the words should run thus:—first. Fra¬ 
ternity;—then, if you can get men to ‘‘fraternize,” 
Equality;—and if equality present any profits, after 
providing for wages, the aged and destitute, an im¬ 
provement fund, &c. (all contemplated in Louis Blanc’s 
plan), then Liberty to put the plan in operation. 



29 


Fellow-countrymen,—all this was child’s play; you 
see that. But the worst of it is, that such child’s 
play is man’s ruin;—and, in fact, France has been 
ruined, almost beyond hope, in the course of her gam¬ 
bols. Are you aware that what your late leaders 
were endeavouring to bring you to was something 
very like this, only disguised, so as not at once to be 
identified with it ? They begun at the same end of 
the series as the French did. ‘^Liberty!” Everything 
was to be broken down, to leave the deck clear for 
action. “ Equality!” Property was to be seized on by 
the new government, and portioned out like rations 
to the people. “ Fraternity !” Human nature was to 
be reversed, and every man in the community was to 
set himself to make the new order of things work 
well, not for his own sake, but for that of the public, 
like a patriot without a newspaper. 

Here in Ireland the experiment would have failed 
at once; but our ruin would have been marked by 
circumstances of horror peculiar to itself. Combined 
with England, we seem to command resources we 
really do not possess. If indeed a social revolution 
were to spread at once over both countries, while they 
remained connected, involved in the same risks, and 
ready to share the same success, that would be a fair 
experiment, and a case parallel to that of France. But 
if this,—the poorest, most populous, and least civi¬ 
lized part of the empire,—were first to break itself 
off from the richer and more powerful portion, from 
the seat of government and of commerce, from the 


30 


focus of wealth, enlightenment, and action, and, thus 
isolated, deprived of all self-sustaining power, to 
hazard the overthrow of society, and the formation 
of a new and untried system of things,—good God, 
would we not be undergoing two mangling operations 
at once, each of them more than a nation could bear? 
First, from an impoverished part of a great empire, 
making ourselves a bankrupt, petty state ; and then, 
alone and in beggary, wringing our vitals out in the 
mad endeavour to imitate the follies which had 
already deluged one of the mightiest empires upon 
earth with the blood of her own sons, and left her 
in the end almost as poor as ourselves ! 

I heartily thank God that all this is over for the 
present. The last embers of revolt are trodden out. 
You must perforce remain as you are, and make the 
best of your condition ; with the certainty, too, that 
you will have to go through another severe trial,— 
scarcity, at least, if not famine,—before you can 
realize your rational hopes, or fulfil your ultimate 
destiny. 

There is one thing you must allow; which is, that as 
things have turned out, you would have been better 
off now, if, instead of listening to the men who have 
brought you to the brink of rebellion and left you 
in a state of helpless disorganization, you had fol¬ 
lowed the advice of those persons who were all along 
recommending you, instead of resorting to threats and 
violence, and attending meetings and clubs, and lay- 


31 


ing out your earnings in buying arms, to set to work 
peaceably and good-humouredly to remedy your real 
evils, and make the best of the advantages you really 
possess. You must admit that you would feel more 
comfortable this day if you had refused to listen to 
the language of sedition and treason, and laughed at 
the men who bid you be angry because you were 
poor, as long as you had a mine in the plot you 
rented, which only needed to be worked to produce 
gold and silver. 

You may think this a strong expression; but I can 
tell you it is nearer to being literally true, than some of 
the, golden promises lately held out to you. I will 
show you how by and by. And there is this to be 
taken into consideration in the mean time, — that 
your peaceable demeanour would turn to your ac¬ 
count in another way, without any exertion of your 
own whatever. 

To understand how this is, you have only to reflect 
that the thing called capital, which is nothing more 
than the money which remains disposable in a man’s 
pocket after he has satisfied his wants, has, like water, 
a natural tendency to seek its own level, passing from 
all sides into the channel of greatest depression. In 
Ireland what is wanted is capital,—the level is low. 
In England it is much higher, and capital would 
therefore naturally flow from the one country into 
the other, if it were not for the dams and obstruc¬ 
tions you have set up by your associations and clubs, 
and that still more atrocious system of private assas- 


32 


sination which has till very lately disgraced our 
country. 

I will give an instance of the necessity for capital 
in Ireland ; though I venture to say most of you do 
not need to have the thing proved. There are 
20,898,271 statute acres of surface in Ireland. Now, 
according to a return made last year, it appears that 
of this there was no more than 4,041,317 acres em¬ 
ployed in the growth of food for human beings ! 

Here is what it is the fashion to call “ a great fact.” 
But, unfortunately, some of these “ facts” seem to be 
so large that they cannot reach the inside of our 
heads, and take up a place where they may be of 
use. Facts are of no avail unless they are working 
like leaven within us. As long as they lie idle, they 
only thicken the brain and dull the wits. Set them 
in motion, and they will first ferment in reflection, 
and then clear into wisdom, which strengthens man 
for action. Nobody who had his senses about him, 
and was aware of this single “ fact,” but would shrink 
from interrupting the flow of capital into a country 
in which four-fifths of the land produced nothing for 
the food of man, and what is called arable land is 
under-cultivated to a degree such as I shall presently 
show. At all events, to arrest the healing stream with 
such rude implements as bludgeons and pikes, is folly 
pretty nearly as monstrous as that laughed at by the 
old poet, of seeking to stop the current of nature with 
a pitchfork. 

And yet that money is not only prevented from 


33 


llowing into the country, but actually driven out of 
it, is proved by the fact, that some English and 
foreign speculations are mainly supported by Irish 
capital; witness the Peninsular and Oriental Steam 
Navigation Company, of which three-fourths of the 
paid-up capital of one million belong to Irish pro¬ 
prietors ! 

You have, I said,—you, I mean, who possess or 
rent land,—a mine of wealth at your door. Sir Ro¬ 
bert Kane, the most accomplished, fairest, and most 
painstaking of those who have undertaken the honour¬ 
able task of teaching us how to turn our advantages 
here in Ireland to the best account, after going into 
minute details of agricultural statistics, sums up what 
he has to say in these remarkable words: “ It is well 
established that on the lands actually cultivated there 
might be raised three times the amount of food that 
is now produced, were a suitably improved system of 
agriculture brought into general use.” 

Now, if all the land capable of cultivation was ac¬ 
tually cultivated,—if it was all made to produce food 
for man,—and all raised to its highest productive 
power, we might have fifteen times as much food pro¬ 
duced in the country as we have now ! 

Take it at a more moderate figure. We might 
certainly have five times as much. See how abun¬ 
dantly we should be fed ; or rather how much more 
than mere food, the lowest of human wants, we should 
be able to produce ! It is where necessity ends that 
comfort begins, and not till comfort is satisfied does 

c 


34 


speculation or luxury begin to operate, according as 
the disposition of the individual points to acquisition 
or indulgence. 

1 say nothing of luxuries. As long as property is 
protected so long will luxury be found,—one of the 
means, though not the most worthy, by which capital 
is redistributed. But speculation is advantageous and 
necessary. Agricultural speculation you all allow to 
be so:—in this way I could show you that no less than 
£160,000,000 could be advantageously invested in 
Ireland; but, no matter what people tell you, the esta¬ 
blishment of manufactures, even in this asfricultural 
country, is easily shown to be calculated to advance 
our general prosperity to an unlimited extent. 

So far, men of Ireland, I have been showing you 
how you stand, as to your condition and prospects. 
I take no credit to myself for the little details I have 
just entered into. I picked them, like valuable grains, 
out of the excellent books that have been written 
about our country and its resources ; and if I dibble 
them in thus sparingly, it is because I have seen as 
abundant a return from the careful sowing of small 
truths as from scattering loose theories broadcast. 

You will see that I have not attempted to strike 
out any plan for your guidance, so as to insure you 
prosperity ; and the reason I have refrained from 
doing so is, because I believe that no general advice 
is of much particular use, every case having circum¬ 
stances peculiar to itself, and needing to be dealt with 


35 


accordingly. I have no faith in “ grand comprehen¬ 
sive schemes.’^ The premium lield out for a “grand 
comprehensive scheme” for Ireland is like that offered 
for the “ perpetual motion,”—it is not likely to be 
claimed ; but the worst of it is, it wastes in experi¬ 
ments the time of people who might be employed 
about something better. The evils with which we 
are overrun here in Ireland have been of slow growth, 
and they must be removed by a slow and patient pro¬ 
cess of weeding. Besides, the able writers I speak of, 
and others, have written so much upon the subject, 
that it could not be expected that I should suggest 
anything new. Instruction of the safest and soundest 
kind you may any of you have, for little more than 
the asking. There are pamphlets, full of useful 
knowledge, to be had at a few shillings the hundred ; 
and indeed any reasonable landlord would be too 
happy if you would ask him to give you some of 
these publications. 

But although I have no idea of striking out plans 
for you to follow, I may as well just glance at a few 
of the most important measures of improvement that 
have been either adopted or recommended of late. 
I need not say a word of Sir Kobert Kane’s book, 
because it is not for you to understand it. It treats 
of the resources of Ireland in a style suited to men 
who make the subject their study as a science ; and 
as you have not time to do so, you must be content to 
benefit by it through the intervention of those who 
wdll bring it in its results to your door. 

2 c 


36 


But there is one question which has been more 
fully examined of late than it ever was,—the question, 
namely, respecting land, its proprietorship, transfer, 
and division. In the session of Parliament about to 
terminate, some important changes have been made 
in the law respecting land. An Act has been passed, 
rendering the sale by embarrassed proprietors of 
their estates comparatively easy, the operation of 
which will be to reduce the difference between the 
nominal and real means of the owners of land in 
Ireland, by replacing such of them as are disabled 
by their circumstances from performing the part as¬ 
signed to them with regard to their estates, by per¬ 
sons free from those disabilities. 

Again,—an equally salutary measure, though on a 
smaller scale, has just been carried through by the 
enterprise of a private company, which has obtained 
an Act enabling it to purchase estates in Ireland as 
they come into the market, to be sold in small lots 
to proprietors in fee, who are to pay a portion of the 
purchase-money by instalments, to extend over a 
limited number of years. The suggestions of that 
sound and practical writer, Mr. Pirn, on this subject, 
it is right to say, had been forestalled years ago by 
the excellent Irishman who has been the main instru¬ 
ment in the formation of this company, and in ob¬ 
taining the favourable consideration of Parliament 
towards it. 

It would be endless to tell you all the remedies 
adopted or proposed for the economic evils of Ire- 


37 


land. Some of them relate to the reclamation of our 
waste lands by Government. Such is Mr. Fagan’s 
plan. Some to their reclamation by the enterprise 
of a private company. This is the new Irish Ame¬ 
lioration Society’s scheme. Others recommend the 
extension of the railway system; others the spread of 
agricultural information, and the encouragement 
of the cultivation of flax. Others, again, call our 
attention to a general system of drainage,—of the 
lands—or of the population. Some point to the fish¬ 
eries,—on which subject a salutary measure has been 
passed ; others to the mines. Mr. J. W. Smith re¬ 
commends the formation of roads, afterwards con¬ 
vertible into railroads ; and has a plan of his own 
for floating harbours. 

Such are a few of the most popular plans for 
bettering your condition. You see how many heads 
are working for you. There is a great deal that is 
good in these plans, and scarcely one of them that 
might not be included as part of a general movement 
towards the furtherance of our real interests. Be¬ 
lieve me, you could ill do without this “upper class” 
of intellect to think for you. If you had all their 
abilities, you have neither their education nor their 
leisure. Were you to set about deciding what to do, 
you would starve before you had time to acquire the 
knowledge necessary to ground your decision. 

It is no proof, because you do not see what men 
of learning are doing, or have done for you, that you 
derive no benefit from them. An artisan may be 


38 


utterly ignorant of the principles according to which 
the implement he makes use of has been constructed. 
Many a weaver would be unable to explain to you 
the simplest piece of mechanism. It is still more 
likely that the farmer will be unable to tell you why 
it is he adopts a particular system. He will tell you 
that it is because it proves the best; but the idea of 
a first discoverer, and of mental labour having been 
applied to it, never crosses his mind. 

Yet it is by the most powerful intellects, and by 
means of the closest observation and deepest study, 
that the received agricultural system has been work¬ 
ed out. I will not now stop to prove this; but when 
I see such a man as Sir Humphry Davy, for in¬ 
stance, entering as he does into the science of the 
rotation of crops, and showing the chemical prin¬ 
ciples on which the true system has been based, I 
cannot help asking myself,—and asking you ^—what 
would become of the farmer without the philoso¬ 
pher? 

There is another class of mind-labourers quite as 
useful to the community as any other, though they 
come seldomer before the public eye. I mean those 
who look into the natural laws by which social ques¬ 
tions are governed, for the purpose of ascertaining 
what is the easiest way of accomplishing what all 
admit to be the first object—the greatest prosperity 
of the greatest number. This is called Political Eco¬ 
nomy. I remember volunteering to say, on a for¬ 
mer occasion, tliat I Avas no political economist. Nor 



39 


am I. But I think it right you should know that 
Political Economy is a genuine as well as a difficult 
and an abstruse science, and one, moreover, which 
concerns us all in its conclusions. As far as it is 
founded on natural principles, it must, of course, 
do so. 

Without puzzling you with questions of this sci¬ 
ence, I may, however, mention, that it clearly points 
out the folly of expecting that “ Government” can 
help you out of all your difficulties. Government 
can do little more for private individuals than secure 
them the liberty of doing the best for themselves ; 
and then the general law comes into play, that what 
is for the interest of the individual is also for the in¬ 
terest of the community at large. All that the Le¬ 
gislature need do is to take off its hand—to avoid 
interfering with trade, commerce, manufactures, 
agriculture ; to leave the natural laws which govern 
them to work freely; and they will adjust the ba¬ 
lance more truly than any wisdom of man could 
possibly do. 

I have set my eye lately on a little treatise by Pro¬ 
fessor Plancock, in which these matters are rationally 
explained. Amongst other notions which he strives 
to combat, or at least to modify, is that so commonly 
entertained amongst us, of the monstrous evil of ab¬ 
senteeism. On this subj ect his remarks are well worth 
attending to. Of course I do not say a word of it in 
a moral point of view,—in that light we must all de¬ 
plore it;—but, viewing it simply as a matter of pounds. 


40 


shillings, and pence, I ask you, when you complain of 
the rich absentees spending money out of the country, 
do you remember the poor absentees, who earn money 
out of it ? Do you know that there are 500,000 
Irish earning their bread in England and Scotland ? 
Do you recollect that 50,000 additional Irish reap 
the harvest in England every year, and bring home 
their earnings ? So you see, to balance the capital 
withdrawn from the country, what a vast amount 
of labour is also withdrawn from it. Indeed the ba¬ 
lance is in our favour,—for the capital of absentees, 
actually spent out of the country, does not exceed 
one-twenty-eighth part of the value of the produce of 
the country; whereas the amount of labour with¬ 
drawn might be expressed numerically by nearly a 
sixteenth of the sum of its population. 

Believe me, you will find, when you come to take 
other alleged causes of complaint to pieces, that they 
will many of them prove less unanswerable than they 
seem. People are fond of saying that farms have 
been too much subdivided ; yet those counties in 
which the farms are the smallest,—Down and Ar¬ 
magh, are, in fact, the most prosperous in Ireland. 
Again, we are told that Ireland is over-populated; and 
our unfortunate families, when they feel the pressure 
of want here, are encouraged to emigrate, as the only 
chance for them. I hate that emigration “ remedy,” 
I must say. I hate it, just as I hate the idea of tax¬ 
ing or punishing absentees. To force people into or 
out of the country is contrary both to my principles 




41 


and my feelings. It is tyrannical, and only shows 
ignorance of true statesmanship. Bribe them by 
tranquillity and industry to remain, if you please, 
but let there be complete freedom of ingress, egress, 
and regress (as the lawyers say), and no obligation to 
perform any of these acts. Just as trade, to be as 
flourishing as possible, ought, in theory, to be as free 
as possible. How can emigration be necessary, until 
the land is forced up to its limit of production ? 

The disease of poverty, arising from an over¬ 
stocked labour market, exists. It ought not to ex¬ 
ist, and you have a right to use your best endea¬ 
vours to lessen it. But you must reflect that nobody 
denies its existence, and nobody says that it ought 
to continue. The only dispute is, that you say you 
will get rid of it by having your own Parliament here, 
by taxing the absentees, by establishing tenant-right, 
by fixing tenures, and by equalizing rents. Whereas 
I say that, not to speak of the political injury they 
would do to the Empire of which Ireland forms a 
portion, every one of these measures are unwise, op¬ 
posed to the deductions of reason and the results of 
observation, and, in a word, calculated to render you 
eventually poorer than you are. 

You see we agree in our object, which is, to make 
you comfortable and happy. It is my interest as an 
Irishman to wish for this, because neither I nor my 
family can be comfortable or happy in our station, 
whatever it may be, nor indeed prosper as we might 


42 


do in that station, as long as a mass of destitution and 
discontent exists around us. It is a direct disadvan¬ 
tage to any man, be his position what it may, from 
the peer to the industrious peasant, to belong to a 
country suffering from pauperism ; and hence it is 
the manifest interest of every man, peer and peasant, 
in this country, to better its condition. We make 
common cause—we are partners in the concern. 

I talk not now of the idle or of the profligate ;— 
such there are amongst the rich, —such there are 
amongst the poor. By the moral constitution of our 
nature it always has been so, and ever will be so. 
That they injure society in proportion to their eleva¬ 
tion in it, is too true ; but not more than the indus¬ 
trious and the virtuous benefit it, in their degree. 
In this sense, the life of a peer is worth the lives of 
many peasants,—for evil or for good, as the case may 
be; that is, it has more influence on the community 
than the lives of many peasants. Look at Lord George 
Hill, for instance. He is a landlord who possesses a 
large estate in the north of Ireland, which, when he 
purchased it, was a wild tract of mountain. By 
unremitting labour, directed by careful study and a 
natural sagacity, he has succeeded in a few years in 
making it a fertile district, supporting numerous con¬ 
tented and comfortable farmers, who give fair wages 
to their labourers, and returning him a large and re¬ 
munerating profit. Such a man is a national bene¬ 
factor. But his utility is enhanced by his position; 



43 


and consequently his life is, for the purposes of the 
country, as that of a general is for his army, wortli 
more than the lives of many of his tenants. 

I say, I speak not of the idle and the profligate ; 
from the highest to the lowest, they do all the mis¬ 
chief in their power. Thank God, even from their 
extravagance good is ultimately derived to the com¬ 
munity. Property would accumulate dangerously in 
the hands of individuals and of families, were it not 
for the improvidence which the possession of wealth 
not earned by ourselves so often gives rise to ; and 
thus is proved the beautiful adjustment of things by 
Providence, which renders even evil itself the un¬ 
conscious instrument of carrying out its beneficent 
designs to the human species at large. But this is 
no excuse for the spendthrift;—and it must be recol¬ 
lected that the uniform natural tendency of these bad 
qualities amongst the rich, is to degrade them from 
their influential position, and place them—or their 
descendants—once more at the bottom of the scale, 
as units amidst the mass of the population. 

But I am inclined to suspect that when you look 
at your own horny hands, and see others that have 
never handled a reaping-hook belonging to persons 
better fed and clothed than you are, you say to your¬ 
self—“Am I to have hard work and bad fare, and 
these people no work and the best of fare 

This you say in ignorance. There are, it is true, 
some among the higher orders who—whether fortu¬ 
nately for themselves or not is very doubtful—are 



44 


under no obligation to work at all; but it is never¬ 
theless true, that the great majority of men belonging 
to what you call the upper classes lie under the 
same necessity as you do to work for their bread, 
and do work, many of them infinitely harder than 
most of you. 

Did you ever hear that there is such a thing as 
sweat of the brain, as well as sweat of the brow ? 
Did you ever hear knowledge compared to a stiff 
soil, hard to dig, and slow of produce ? Have you 
ever heard of the labour of business, of professions, 
of statesmanship, as well as of handy-work ? 

Well, I can tell you that it is lucky for you that 
you are not obliged to make the experiment in your 
own person, of the relative work your lot and mine 
impose upon us. True, I hold the pen, and you the 
plough. But, believe me, it does not follow that you 
are the labourer, and I am the idler. 

You suffer great hardships ; you are exposed to 
all the severities of the weather ; your limbs are 
racked with fatigue ; your food is coarse, often 
scanty. All this cannot be denied. 

Do you think it would be a change for the better 
to have the thoughts eternally drudging away in an 
unexercised body, carrying forward through a strug¬ 
gling life the studies of a cramped and crippled boy¬ 
hood, until that degree of skill is mastered sufficient 
to render the calling that is chosen a source of profit 
to one’s self, and a provision for one’s family ; and 
all the time this body, which denies happiness to him 


45 


who neglects its requirements, failing the overtasked 
mind, oppressing it with its maladies, refusing it the 
refreshment of sleep, disquieting it with anxious 
agitations, and finally, perhaps (too often the sequel 
of the story), sweeping out the whole record of a 
life’s toil and a life’s acquirements, with the gaunt 
finger of insanity ? 

But whichever be the better lot, the labour of the 
brow or the labour of the brain, God has imposed 
both inevitably on man ; and you or I—society cares 
not which —must undergo the one or the other. 

There is an old story of leave having once been 
given to men to exchange the burden of their cares 
with each other. They had scarcely felt the new 
ones, when they one and all prayed to have their 
own once more upon their shoulders. 

You have little idea how many of those clever men 
who are breaking their hearts with study, are at this 
moment toiling for your good. There are great 
societies established entirely for this object. These 
societies are increasing ; and there are more men 
setting their wfits to work to make out w^ays of bet¬ 
tering your condition now, than there ever were 
before, since you were a people. If I had room, I 
could fill pages with their names. There never was 
a time in which the condition of the poor occupied 
so much of the attention of the rich. And there are 
two causes to which this happy amelioration is to be 
set down ; one is, the increasing conviction that the 
true interests of the poor and the rich are insepara- 


46 


bly united, and that in all the concerns of the former 
a similar spirit ought to be adopted, and for a simi¬ 
lar reason, as that which now prompts the latter 
to use every precaution to prevent the origin and 
spread of infectious and contagious diseases amongst 
the population,—a spirit, namely, of self-preservation. 
And the other is,—I feel my heart glow with satis¬ 
faction when I say it,—the spread and power of 
a Christian philanthropy in dealing witli our fellow- 
men, urging the duties we owe our neighbours into 
practical operation, as much for the gratification 
afibrded to the benefactor as for the benefit done to 
the object. And here I may as well observe, that 
it is from design I omit further mention of the influ¬ 
ences of religion on our condition ; not that I deem 
them unimportant; on tlie contrary, I believe that 
on the amount of those influences amonc^st communi- 
ties of men depends not only their ultimate happi¬ 
ness, but the degree of individual comfort and social 
tranquillity they will enjoy, be their circumstances 
what they may. But I am anxious to be of use to 
all of you, in matters in which all can agree; and I 
do not wish to touch upon a topic which, strange as 
it may seem, has unhappily always been in this coun¬ 
try tlie watchword of division and strife. 

I say, all these kindly pains have been taken for 
years;—never so much as lately. It was lately that 
you were not only pauperized but starving,—not only 
distressed but destitute. Then, indeed, the upper 
classes put their shoulders to the wheel. What was 



47 


the grant of ten millions compared to the private cha¬ 
rities I have spoken of? Prayers, tears, entreaties ; 
women foregoing not only pleasure, but their own 
personal affairs, to gather little heaps of relief for 
you ; men putting by their own pressing avocations, 
that they might devote their whole energies to lighten 
your distress. And yet,—gracious _God ! that I should 
have to say it!— this was the time when you,— 
not you the starving, not you the helpless and desti¬ 
tute,—oh no!—you, the relieved^ —you, the survivors 
of the famine, because Government and good men 
had said that you must not die—that, no matter who 
paid for it, you must he fed, —you, I say, entered into 
a conspiracy to cut the throats of your benefactors 
in cold blood ! Can it be believed ? Where do we 
find evidence of it ? In the only journals you would 
buy,—in the journals you bought by thousands;—in 
the only speeches you would listen to,—in the 
speeches you shouted your applause of. 

Too true. When men who wished you well were 
passing day after day and night after night in toil, 
examining the most subtle operations of nature, and 
exploring the secrets of science, to devise means 
for increasing the fertility of your fields, to put you 
in the way of receiving double and triple returns for 
your labour and your outlay, and to turn your crops 
to the best account, you were devoting that harvest, 
not to the market of peace, but to the commissariat 
of war; and determining, in the bitterness of your 
hearts, that the more plenteous it proved, the more 







48 


vengeance you would take upon the objects of your 
hatred. 

A sore, sore subject is this ; a disheartening, over¬ 
whelming subject. . But I dare not, for your sakes 
as well as my own, pass it over. 

Yes, you listened to your schoolmasters,—you went 
out into your fields in the openness of the summer 
sky, when the face of heaven was unveiled, and there 
you lifted up your hands and uttered the impious 
vow. 

You turn your eyes to the earth again. What do 
you see ? While they were raised in blasphemy, 
the breath of the angel of God had gone forth, and 
blackness, and decay, and despair were at your 
feet. 

Did not your heart tell you, at that moment, that 
the judgment was deserved ? Had you not become 
parties to a plot for wholesale butchery? Were 
not all the softer and kinder emotions of your souls 
stifled within you, and the brutal instincts and savage 
passions left to riot there alone ? Were you not 
banded to place weapons of death in the grasp of 
your children ; to receive the implements of murder 
from the hands of your wives and daughters ; to rise 
against all who would not join in the blind rush of your 
rage ; and—in the words of your own journalist— 
to “ ease your longing thirst deep, deep in the blood” 
of the peaceful and the good ? 

Of course all this entered into your hearts and was 
ready to nerve your arm “ in the times that were 




49 


coming.” All tins would, of course, be carried out 
with frightful effect on the first opportunity. Your 
chieftain went among you ; you rose in arms ; yoiL 
crowded round him ; you shouted aloud. He led 
you to the attack ; you fought; you were defeated, 
—hut you took a prisoner ; not merely one of us ; he 
belonged to the very corps that had defeated you 
and‘killed your comrades. 

Now was the time for the “ thirst” of years to be 
slaked. Oh, what cruelties you must have wreaked on 
the person of that unhappy man! How you must have 
lingered over the work of torture, lest he might 
have become too soon unconscious of his own ago¬ 
nies and your triumph ! Paris had tutored you in 
various ingenious devices, even if your own leaders 
had been remiss in this respect. 

But you must have done all this very secretly. I 
cannot find a trace of it in the accounts before the 
public. Surely there must have been something 
withheld; or you were of all assassins the most un¬ 
accountable when you let slip so good an opportu¬ 
nity. I cannot discover that you tore your prisoner 
limb from limb; that you even so much as thought 
of the saintly advice to make your enemies, any of 
you who had the power, at least less by one. Oh! 
no ; I forgot ,—and the wretches who schooled you 
forgot, —that, if you had Irish miseries and Irish 
wrongs, you had Irish hearts; and that the helpless 
captive was safe under the shadow of these, in the 
midst of his enemies. Carroll was freely and at once 

• D 


50 


given liis life by the whole body of insurgents, be¬ 
cause one man asked it for him; and tliis, though 
you knew full well that your safety lay in despatch¬ 
ing him. Thus reprieved, he was handed over to four 
pf your body, who might now have got rid of their 
charge, in a moment, and in the most satisfactory way. 
Three of these left the unarmed prisoner yet alive 
in the custody of the fourth, in whom it would have 
been only common prudence to have put him out of 
the way. But, no; not even then did the injunctions 
of the journals or the stern dictates of self-preser¬ 
vation seal his doom. They both suffered from ex¬ 
haustion ; and the sentinel Avould not partake of re¬ 
freshment without sharing it with his prisoner. This 
coidd only end in one way. Generosity, humanity, 
brotherly-kindness, got the better of the Irish rebel 
and his wrongs ; and, forgetting the fearful respon¬ 
sibility he himself incurred, he dismissed the man, 
whose natural course was to his quarters to give 
evidence against him! 

Was ever a more affecting trait heard of in the an¬ 
nals of warfare? Why, instances of self-sacrificing 
generosity such as this, have been recorded as the 
crowning incidents in the career of heroes. I wish I 
could see the man who acted thus, that I might thank 
him on the part of my country. 

Do you believe, now, that I look upon the black¬ 
ening of your fields as a curse from on high ? Seldom 
indeed have the judgments of the Almighty fallen 
where they could only strike the poor and the des¬ 
titute. 


51 


And will you, my suHering, brave, and wronged 
countrymen!—will you, while we can scarcely re- 
])ress our tears of admiration and compassion,—will 
you allow yourselves any longer to be mixed up in 
the eyes of the world with the sanguinary ruffians 
who thought they had brought your metal to the 
temper of their own case-hardened hearts, and suffer 
yourselves to be called cowards because you could 
not bring yourselves to be drilled into their murder¬ 
ous discipline ? Thrust them out from your ranks 
—discard them—renounce them: and, now that law 
and order are likely to be re-established, show by 
your sayings and doings, that, bewildered as you were 
by miseries you could not escape, and arguments you 
could not refute, you never did more than barely to¬ 
lerate the brutal suggestions of these journals, for the 
sake of the hopes they inspired, and the glorious des¬ 
tiny they pictured for our country. 

Shake them off, I say. You never felt with them. 
You never thirsted for blood, though you hungered' 
for food. And I will tell you more. You never 
were brought to believe even in your own wrongs: 
you could not persuade yourselves that you were 
over-ridden by a hostile, and a stranger, and a tyrant 
rule. On the contrary, you saw that you lived under 
mild and just laws, and that you were mixed up with 
your British brothers by ties so intimate, that the- 
very races were melted together into one, so that 
Saxon and Celt were words that had no real mean-' 
intr. None of you were tliere that had not friends, 

O 


52 


brothers, cousins, working amongst the working men 
in England or the Colonies. Few of you that had 
not patrons, friends, or relations of that wide-spread 
and powerful race in your own neighbourhood. 
Subjects of the same sovereign, citizens of the same 
mighty empire, participators in the unexampled pri¬ 
vileges of British freedom, you were in a false position 
when you were marshalled against that sovereign, 
that empire, and that freedom ; and you felt at the 
bottom of your hearts that you could not devote your¬ 
selves witli true courage to such a cause. A great 
man—one who knew human nature as well as any 
human beins: ever did—once wrote, that “conscience 
doth make cowards of us all.’’ Some little man said the 
other day that we could not get up even a respectable 
rebellion here. The little man was right, though he 
could not see why. If he wants to know what you 
can do, let him read the accounts of any of the com¬ 
bats of the Peninsula,—FuentesD’Onor, for instance; 
or cast his eye, as I did lately, over a toy, called 
a model, of part of the battle of Waterloo, in which 
the artist has exhibited you on your chargers, sabre 
in hand, foremost of all, buried amongst the bat¬ 
talions of the French, hewing your way to glory. 
There the Irishman was in his right place ; and 
nobly did he acquit himself, fighting, as a loyal sub¬ 
ject and citizen, for his sovereign and his country. 
Yes,—from commanding the armies of Europe to 
serving in their ranks, my countrymen have ever 
proved themselves worthy of the British as well as 


53 


the Irish name, and earned a place in the brightest 
pages of history. It was only degrading yourselves, 
and casting a slur on the reputation you had so justly 
and nobly earned, to band yourselves in a loose and 
clumsy confederation, under a set of ignorant enthu¬ 
siasts, who knew so little of real strength and real 
science, as to see in a regiment of Her Majesty’s 
troops, with all its discipline, system, experience, and 
unity, nothing more than a thousand men; and to pic¬ 
ture in a half-armed mob, without a single trace of 
combination or order, that mighty and complicated 
piece of machinery called an army. 

All this folly lias passed away. The experience 
of the last few months has banished the delusion that 
had been growing up for twenty years. 

And now another state of things has opened to 
Ireland. You look upon yourselves and others with 
a different eye. It is not hostile armies that pre¬ 
sent themselves in Her Majesty’s troops. It is your 
own countrymen ranged in defence of peace and or¬ 
der, surrounding you with friendly care, restraining 
your violence, to protect yo\x from yourselves. 

But, oh ! we dare not forget this,—the food is in 
danger ! The great question for us all is, what is 
to be done to save us from a new famine ? I have 
heard men of science say that they could prove to 
me that the best thing for a nation to do in a case 
like our’s is, to leave it to private enterprise and pri- 


54 


vate benevolence to provide for and remedy the im¬ 
pending evil. Even our great countryman, Edmund 
Burke, gave it as his opinion, that if Government 
ever stretched out its hand to feed the people, they 
would infallibly take the first opportunity to turn 
and bite it. And I have heard men of the world 
say that the Empire ought not to be expected again 
to drain its resources for the relief of that population 
which rose and cursed the hand that was stretched 
out to it, and conspired against the lives and proper¬ 
ties of its benefactors ; urging, as an additional rea¬ 
son, the probability of a scarcity of food in every 
part of Her Majesty’s dominions, and the low state of 
national credit. 

I will not listen to either of these classes of rea- 
soners. The first, with their science, I throw over¬ 
board at once, by asking them whether they are pre¬ 
pared quietly to allow thousands to die of hunger, in 
order that relief may not beget ingratitude ; that is, 
to do a certain evil, in order to avoid an evil that is 
uncertain ? And as for the second, whether they be 
right or wrong, I do not believe that the generous and 
compassionate hearts of the British people Avill stop 
to reason about the matter at all. Certain I am, that 
if they are fated to see a helpless and deluded pea¬ 
santry once more stretclied in the agonies of hunger 
at their feet, though they may be the very peasantry 
who had pointed their ])ikes at their throats, tliey 
will forget everything but the claims of destitution ; 
and, taking warning by the mistakes of the last fa- 




55 


iiiine, pour in upon the famishing districts of our 
country a still more copious, a still more accurately 
regulated, and a still more economically administered 
supply of food than they had done before. 

I do from my heart hope—and 1 strongly advise, 
—that when the necessity shall appear they may 
begin in time. 

It is not my object, in speaking to you, to enter 
further on this question, nearly as it concerns you. 
It is for other ears,—and to them the Irish patriot 
might well address himself. 

My business now is with you ; and your business 
is with yourselves. You have many foolish ideas to 
get rid of Some of them, the events that have lately 
occurred at home and abroad have necessarily re¬ 
moved. You will be more respected, even by the 
nations you have been so long looking to for sym¬ 
pathy, when you have discarded them all. They 
could scarcely help laughing when they heard you 
call yourselves slaves, at the very time your news¬ 
papers were speaking open treason, and your leaders 
openly drilling you against your Queen. They ac¬ 
tually said you were suffering under an excess of 
liberty ! 

Some of you, who are anxious for peace and quiet¬ 
ness, will ask me—how can this excitement, this rage 
and exasperation, ever pass off ? Surely, they say, 
if the passions are roused by a sense of grievances, 
real or fancied, it is not by force or fear that these 
ugly tenants of the human breast can be ejected ? 


56 


Now, here, experience—or history, which is no¬ 
thing more than recorded experience—comes to our 
aid; and history shows that, so far from political ex¬ 
citement being a permanent state of things, it has a 
natural tendency to abate, like the flames of a fever, 
and cannot indeed exist at its height for any very 
long period. On questions precisely similar to that 
which you have made your watchword—Repeal— 
there have been national ferments equally violent with 
your’s, which have subsided in a few years, without 
leaving a trace behind them; and given place to per¬ 
manent peace and contentment. 

From the many instances 1 could produce, I shall 
choose one, partly because my attention has been 
lately drawn to it, and partly because it is, in all its 
parts, both appropriate to our case and highly in¬ 
structive to you. 

Brittany, which was, up to the period of the first 
French Revolution, a province of France, had been 
originally a separate state, and was united to the 
French Crown by the marriage of the reigning 
duchess with the King of France. About the begin¬ 
ning of the last century, after this union had been 
long established, it took a fancy for “ Repeal,’’ and 
the whole province became a scene of violent excite¬ 
ment and open preparation for war. The “ Lord 
Clarendon” of the day, however, poured his troops 
into it; and the leaders, who had embarked their 
whole influence and property in the movement, either 
were taken and executed, or fled, penniless, into 


57 


Spain. But mark the sequel. When, a few years af¬ 
terwards, the fugitives were permitted to return, they 
found everything changed. Tlie citizens and people 
of Brittany were now the most zealous supporters 
of the union, which had opened to them a lucrative 
commerce with foreign countries ; and the men who 
had lost their all in the popular cause, discovered at 
last, that even popularity itself had deserted them. 

And, in like manner, I not only hope, but believe, 
that ten years hence your leaders may find you too 
advantageously occupied to recollect even their pro¬ 
mises ; and that you may yourselves look back with 
astonishment to the year 1848, and view its history, 
from the waking prosperity of your condition, as if 
it had been a troubled dream. 


THE END. 


E 



LUCK AND LOYALTY. 


Of the most eventful year that has ever risen on 
Ireland the last sands are running out 

Few periods of the world’s history have been so 
eventful everywhere ; certainly none in which oc¬ 
currences of extreme national importance have fol¬ 
lowed each other in such rapid succession, in so 
many great countries. 

No one who looks beneath the surface can say 
that because Great Britain has preserved a calm 
exterior, she has not been agitated by the operation 
of forces scarcely less tremendous than those that 
have openly convulsed the other kingdoms of 
Europe. When Vesuvius for the first time within 
the historic period burst into flame and resumed its 
place amongst the active volcanoes of the earth, it is 
within the limits of possibility that a slightly greater 
degree of hardness or thickness in the crust which 
had caked over the eruptions of an unknown era 
might have kept down the subterranean elements 
for ever, and that the olive and the vine might to this 



6 


day have flourished where the crater now yawns, 
and the palace and the amphitheatre yet tower from 
the imdesolated plain, instead of being dug out of 
their sepulchre of ashes. 

In like manner, we are not to argue that because 
England is still England, with the integrity of her 
institutions and of her political continuity unbroken, 
she has not gone through a great crisis. The event¬ 
ful “ Monday^"* was, as it turned out, an alarm. It 
might have been a revolution. 

Here, with all the tumult of preparation,—the 
rustling of the rising of an entire people,—anything 
that could have occurred would nevertheless have 
been of unspeakably less importance to Ireland itself 
than was the issue of the projected meeting on Ken- 
nington Common ; for, in every great movement in 
England, we are necessarily and at once involved ; 
whereas even the partial or temporary success of 
rebellion here would only have been the beginning 
of an end, the actual and abidingresult being deferred 
until the whole strength of the British empire had 
been brought into action. 

It is instructive to look behind us,—for history, 
like Hebrew, is to be read backwards,—and observe 
how many things have concurred to produce the re¬ 
sults we see ; how differently events might have 
turned out, had other events turned out differently ; 
how strikingly things within our control have been 
affected by things beyond it; and hence, how uni¬ 
formly,—to use a common phrase,—“ the luck has 


7 


been on our side.’’ Let me substantiate wliat I say 
by a rapid summary of recent occurrences. 

It was at the beginning of this year that the party 
calling itself “ Young Ireland,” being that section of 
the old O’Connell combination which conceived that 
to move in a circle did not imply progression, unless 
the circle was brought into contact with some re¬ 
sisting body,—having on this ground separated itself 
from the other,—found itself in its highest state of 
efficiency and discipline. It was swelled by the 
most energetic and least sordid disciples of the pa¬ 
rent school; it was evidently in earnest; and it had 
inflammable materials to work upon, in a great 
population scarcely recovering from starvation, and 
conceiving itself inadequately fed by grumbling 
opulence. Words of defiance which could not be 
misunderstood were uttered ; and an organization, 
which might at any moment be converted into a 
military one, was energetically carried forward. 

We were at that period, be it remarked, at peace 
with the whole world ; and the great countries of 
Europe were at peace with each other. In all of them, 
too, internal order prevailed, although it was expected 
that the death of the French monarch, naturally 
looked for at no very distant period, must embroil 
that nation in an intestine war, and probably com¬ 
promise the tranquillity ofEurope. It was princi¬ 
pally to the chances of that event that the disaffected 
party in this country looked. That they were de¬ 
termined to act, sooner or later, was plain. An 
ultimate appeal to force seemed inevitable. 


8 


Now, had Europe still remained unmoved, things 
would in all probability not have ripened here as 
rapidly as they did. We should have had prepara¬ 
tions going on, and the usual incitements applied, 
for a longer period, which would have brought us 
forward to the time when a second potato failure 
would have afforded fresh stimulus to public discon¬ 
tent, and a harvest would have been available for the 
purposes of an insurgent force. 

Our first piece of “ luck,” then, was, that France 
overthrew her government in the month of February. 

However, as far as any of us could see, that event 
was precisely the thing most calculated to serve 
the cause of revolution in this country, and damage 

4 

the imperial interests within it. It seemed better 
even than a dispute about the succession, in case 
Louis Philippe had died, for it left France free of 
such internal questions, to expend its military fury 
in collision with neighbouring nations. 

I believe that scarcely a person existed, possessing 
even the most superficial knowledge of the French 
character and history, who did not feel that it was 
the thirst of Frenchmen for war that was at the bot¬ 
tom of most of the discontents of that country; or, 
at all events, that that known passion would have 
seized on the first opportunity afforded it for grati¬ 
fication ;—and, moreover, that a war with England 
was what was most likely to suit the temper of those 
turbulent spirits who had for years regarded with 
sullen dissatisfaction the termination of our last con¬ 
tinental struggle, and longed to pay off old scores. 


9 


Certainly no man alive imagined that the French 
people, set free from all restraint, and left to run 
riot in practical anarchy, would suffer a month to 
go over without an overwhelming onslaught on this 
powerful and envied neighbour-kingdom. 

On the 22nd of February France rose, and threw 
off her government. She elected a new one,—pro¬ 
visionally, it is true, but invested with full powers 
to act, and only less influential than a permanent 
one in the means of checking popular extravagance. 
Amongst the members of that government, one of 
the most influential was a man who had always 
identified himself in a remarkable manner with 
hostility to England and sympathy for Ireland. He 
had, at a time when his own country and ours were 
alike unshaken, boldly proffered aid to the disaf¬ 
fected party here ; and announced himself the friend 
of any movement having for its aim to disengage 
Ireland from British connexion. All the members 
of that government were essentially democrats,— 
some of them little short of sheer communists. 

It was, therefore, apparently impossible that any 
circumstances could concur more favourable to the 
views of the revolutionists here. A French inva¬ 
sion seemed inevitable ; and we thought ourselves 
doomed to see Ireland at last the theatre of a Euro¬ 
pean war. 

A man, however, was thrown up to the surface 
of the whirlpool, who might seem to the observer 
who looked at Irish interests alone, to have been 


10 


raised for the express purpose of discomfiting the 
schemes of the insurgent body here, as he was 
certainly deposed from his eminence as soon as he 
had served our purpose. That man—a poet, a 
dreamer, as we had thought—rose gradually into 
the ascendant in the councils of France ; and his 
power became at last so absolute, that by his sole 
influence he was enabled not only to sway the whole 
body of his associates in authority, but to temper 
the passions and neutralize the prejudices of the 
most headstrong nation of Europe,—a nation which 
had placed him where he was only to work out their 
own objects. This man, actuated by what we would 
be inclined to call an unaccountable impulse, had 
already determined to refuse co-operation with the 
party through which France might best have hum¬ 
bled England, before a formal delegation from its 
body had reached the shores of his country. 

This was our second piece of “ luck.’’ 

Revolutionary excitement, however, is shown by 
the induction of history to be epidemic. It is as 
much in the air as cholera. Masses become infected 
with it, and even robust intellectual constitutions 
with difficulty resist its influence. This fact is so 
apparent and so striking, that “ political monomania” 
has lately been made the subject of medical inquiry 
both in these countries and on the Continent, with 
a view to its psychological elucidation. 

It was not to be expected, tlierefore, that even 
sober England should escape. In fact, large masses 




11 


of her population began to move like the convulsion- 
naires of a century ago ; and about the first of April 
last looked as if they too were inclined to play 
the fool. She set to work in her usual business¬ 
like manner, and a grand attempt was agreed to be 
made to overawe Government, of which the day 
and hour were duly notified to the insurgents—and 
to the authorities. 

In this game Ireland had indeed an interest. A 
sort of armistice ensued, as if by a tacit understand¬ 
ing, in order that each party here should have leisure 
to look on. 

You all know the result of the memorable 10th 
of April. England, with all its ardour, had inhe¬ 
rited too vast an estate to play at the thimble-rig of 
revolution. It did no more than shake its head and 
point to the constable, and the alluring board was 
hawked off to a safer part of the course. 

This was, of all the rest, the most important piece 
of luck” for Ireland. 

Well: the battle was to be fought single-handed. 

There were men of courage and ability, however, 
engaged in the movement; too deeply pledged to 
retreat, too zealously inclined to falter. 

One amongst them had of late occupied the fore¬ 
most rank ; a man well fitted to lead a forlorn-hope, 
but ill calculated to manage a complicated system 
of warfare. Headstrong, ambitious, fierce, reckless, 
—a Catiline in all but his rank,—the greater the 
difficulties which rose around him, the more dog- 



12 


gedly did he pursue the course he had chalked out 
for himself. The dictates of prudence and of prin¬ 
ciple were alike disregarded, and the leadership of 
a mighty people became in his hands a personal and 
mortal conflict with his individual enemies. 

Nor were the terms in which his maxims were 
couched one whit less characteristic of the man than 
his actions. Indeed, in utter inaptness as well as 
in impotent brutality, his counsel to his followers 
as to their mode of dealing with Lord Clarendon 
reminds one of “ the Chicken’s” pugilistic advice to 
his pupil in the case of Mr. Dombey, — “Double 
him up!” 

The operations on both sides were at this time 
unspeakably important, looking at their results. 
Both parties stood prepared. The eyes of Europe 
were upon the contest: a false move on either side 
was sure to be fatal ; and this was known to every 
looker-on. 

The great thing to avoid was the initiative. We 
all knew that. No man in his senses but would, 
once his organization was complete^ liave cautiously 
abstained from committing himself in any way not 
involving what lawyers call “ the general issue.” 

Mitchel had two courses open to him. The 
Crown and Government Security Bill was sure to 
pass shortly, for the English people had (“luckily” 
for us) just had an alarm which overcame the scru¬ 
ples of timidity and the obstructing influences of 
faction. One course was, to take the field at once. 


13 


The other was, to remain both passive and silent, 
and put it upon Government to stretch out its hand 
towards him, and proceed upon acts done or words 
spoken or written before the passing of the Act. On 
the supposition that he doubted the result of what 
he was doing, his conduct seems unaccountable. 
But even supposing he had calculated on success, it 
was sheer folly to throw down the gage upon a colla¬ 
teral question. 

Mitchel, however, as I have said, all along acted 
as an individual combatant. Ireland, it is true, might 
have suffered little by his forbearance, but he would 
have been silenced—for a time ; and this his nature 
could not brook. 

He continued to speak out as he had done. 

The false step was instantly taken advantage of. 
He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced for 
the publications of the 6th and 13th of May, both 
subsequent to the passing of the Act^ which received 
the Koyal assent on the 22nd of April. There could 
be no mistake as to the course the Executive must 
take. The law was clear. England, Europe, Ame¬ 
rica saw that. It had just passed, and was intended 
to be acted on. Lord Clarendon must either have 
evacuated the Castle, or have seized Mitchel. 

Hence the initiative was the latter’s. If I lay a 
man-trap in my grounds, and post a warning notice 
respecting it, the man who enters the premises, after 
having read the notice, has only himself to thank if 
' lie is caught by the leg. 


14 


Once Mitchel left the shores of his country as 
an exile, the “ game was up.” 

All that followed was marked by wildness and 
incoherence ; but the measures resorted to partly 
made up by their desperate truculence what they 
wanted in prudence. Such is generally the course 
of men on the brink of ruin. 

The friends of the protomartyr must, of course, 
vow themselves to his liberation, or volunteer to die 
in the attempt. But they were manifestly water¬ 
logged; for, as it happened, the convict himself had 
spared no pains to instruct the Irish people that 
their destinies were wrapped up in his^ and that on 
the issue of his personal encounter with power de¬ 
pended the great question of their success. Hence, 
there was a general depression in the public mind, 
which, it now appears evident, influenced the other 
members of the conspiring body at least to defer 
a decisive movement in aid of their victimized com¬ 
rade. 

The personal character of Mitchel, then, was a 
“ lucky” circumstance for us. 

Had France continued to preserve internal order, 
and succeeded in extricating herself from the finan¬ 
cial, material, and social difficulties with which she 
was beset, so as to present a clear contrast in her 
reformed state to her condition under the monar¬ 
chy, a plausible argument might have been thence 
derived by restless spirits for the expediency of a 
similar experiment in Ireland, where many of the 


15 


alleged grounds of discontent were analogous to those 
that had been urged by the French people. Had she 
secured tranquillity and contentment within her com¬ 
munity,—had she placed public credit on a firmer 
basis, or effected a diminution in the sufferings and 
the miseries of the lower classes,—had she, finally, 
wrought an amelioration in the tone of public mora¬ 
lity, and elevated the standard of national virtue,— 
even reflecting men here might have deemed it 
worthy of grave consideration whether similar means 
might not produce similar effects, and calmly await, 
if not designedly further, the issue of a struggle 
which might possibly secure such brilliant results. 
I say there are selfish, cool, and calculating minds, 
which would be quite ready to dismiss considera¬ 
tions of principle and loyalty, and entertain the ab¬ 
stract question of gain or loss, without much scruple 
on the score of political ethics. 

Fortunately for us, in France not a single item 
in the list of anticipated benefits was realized; and, 
lest there should be any mistake in the matter, the 
people of Paris, driven to desperation, proclaimed 
their opinion of the advantage of revolution, by 
rising in a body against the revolutionists^ and cutting 
their throats right and left. 

It is wonderful what a number of waverers that 
affair set right in this country. It was by no means 
a pleasant idea for the complacent and comfortable 
“ Kepealer’^ here, who, disgusted at the idea of Eng¬ 
land having happened to be geographically larger 



16 


than Ireland, and determined, if he could, at least to 
belong to the head-quarters of a nation, had fomented 
for years those discontents which in his mind only 
deserved notice as they pointed to ultimate separa¬ 
tion ; it was, I say, by no means agreeable to such an 
individual to behold the future of Ireland rehearsed 
in France, and reflect that the beginning of the se¬ 
cond act might see him metamorphosed from the 
triumphant opponent of past institutions into the 
trembling defender of new ones, having that very 
class which he had made use of and thought to cast 
away as the scaffolding in his ascent, now ranked and 
arrayed against him, with the overwhelming moral 
argument in their favour, that he himself had taught 
them their strength, and enjoined them to use it 
recklessly, and for their own purposes. 

Hence, the June affair of Paris forced the insur¬ 
rectionary movement here down into a lower class. 

But it did more. That insurrection was unsuc¬ 
cessful :—from thence certain inferences were to be 
drawn. 

1. A regular army, provided they are in earnest, 
will overcome a popular outbreak under the most 
disadvantageous circumstances. The strongest bar¬ 
ricades in the strongest city (for such purposes) in 
the world, cannot resist scientific attack. 

2. In this country, the army being imperial, even 
revolution could not command, for a length of time, 
the services of a disciplined veteran military force. 

3. In a counter-revolution here, the existing Go- 


17 


vernment could not assert its authority by any means 
proportioned to those brought to bear on the move¬ 
ment which took place in Paris in June. There, it 
was the National Guards from the country which 
alone enabled the Provisional Government to make 
head against the insurgents. 

4. Hence, a counter-revolution here might he ex~ 
pected to he successful. 

It is wonderful how rapidly such considerations 
flash through the minds of men who will be impli¬ 
cated in the consequences. Never spoken, scarcely 
acknowledged in the secret heart, they yet unnerve 
a thousand ready arms, and draw the charges from a 
thousand furbished rifles. It might be added, too, 
that the club system, with its machinery of pillage 
and massacre, deriving countenance as it did from 
the example of the red-republicans, tended to draw 
off many, from motives of personal terror, who would 
not have been deterred so easily if there was no 
chance of their being themselves, in the progress of 
events, enrolled amongst the victims of that atrocious 
system. 

The June affair in Paris, then, was our next piece 
of “ luck.” 

Here the stone had been set rolling, however; and 
to stop it now was beyond the power, even if it was 
within the contemplation, of the insurrectionary coun¬ 
cil. A fresh leader was recognised,—the best that 
could be had, though not the best that might be wished. 
A gentleman of birth, education, and property,—more 


13 


18 


than respectable in his attainments, connexions, man¬ 
ners, and position,—possessing all the necessary qua¬ 
lifications for the honourable post he occupied, as 
representative in Parliament for an extensive county, 
—of blameless private character, and a conscientious 
and sincere Protestant,—such was the person pitched 
upon. That such a man should have lent himself to 
the designs of a desperate and unprincipled faction, 
with whom he could have had scarcely a feeling or 
propensity in common, and from whom his very man¬ 
ners and associations naturally dissevered him, is only 
to be accounted for by one circumstance,—he hap¬ 
pened to be descended from—though he was not the 
representative of—the last of the Irish independent 
princes; and this accident of birth, working upon a 
constitutionally vain and ambitious temperament, had 
induced a monomania, running upon the idea that the 
royal dignities of his ancestors were destined to be 
reinstated in his person. His whole history shows 
(and indeed is only explained by the supposition) 
that he was—shall we say, is f —the man of one idea. 
The crown of Munster filled up the entire space 
usually assigned to the intellectual faculties; it hung 
between his eye and every object, like the image of 
the sun when we have looked too long upon it; and 
while it fascinated and amused him by its magnifi¬ 
cence, served to blind him at once to the reality of 
his duties and the delusiveness of his hopes. His 
whole existence was an hallucination. He evidently 
thought he had a star,—and probably consulted it. 



19 


Certainly, he took counsel of nothing less astrologi¬ 
cal and uncommunicative. And this clears up much 
which would otherwise be a mystery. It is a clue 
to his whole career;—it reconciles his worst incon¬ 
sistencies;—it explains his stepping out of a sphere 
which might have satisfied any ordinary ambition, 
and which he might have occupied with credit, if 
not adorned,—his deafness to argument, and rejec¬ 
tion of moderation or compromise,—his apparent 
countenance of measures which his whole nature 
must have revolted from,—his seeming adoption of 
principles under which the very nobility of his blood 
would have disqualified his person,—the almost 
comic gratuitousness of that startling display in the 
House of Commons, in which the calmness and com¬ 
placency of the man while uttering such tremendous 
sentiments, must have reminded the hearers of that 
memorable freak, in which Garrick recited tragedy 
with his hands pinned to his sides, while Goldsmith 
moved his abbreviated arms in grotesque action from 
behind him,—his open appearance in the provinces en 
grand tenue as a chieftain, with a walking-stick for a 
baton and a few ragamuffins for an army:—every¬ 
thing which excites our wonder, compassion, or mirth 
in his career, is to be explained by the one circum¬ 
stance:—his horoscope had informed him that the 
scion of the house of Inchiquin was to be King Wil¬ 
liam-Smith the First! 

Ill-fated gentleman ! To see him hustled to jus¬ 
tice as a criminal was almost too melancholy a spec- 

B 2 



20 


tacle for justice itself to bear. I know and feel that 
those who were obliged by paramount considerations 
of public policy to cut short his career, were per¬ 
haps those most keenly affected by the doom he had 
drawn upon himself. 

But each and every of the circumstances I have 
detailed were so many guarantees for the failure of 
the cause he had espoused. 

What the disaffected masses wanted was a peasant 
like themselves,—a man of^ as well as for the peo¬ 
ple,—a Masaniello—a Tell—a Hofer—a Toussaint. 
They wanted a new O’Connell, with all his ability, 
all his nationality, all his catholicity, all his strength, 
and more than his courage ; a man whom they could 
at once love and fear,—worship, in short. 

O’Brien had not a single personal point of union 
with the Irish people. 

But all the energies of the Irish peasantry are re¬ 
served for objects of personal veneration. 

Hence we were “ in luck” when O’Brien was re¬ 
cognised as the rebel chief. 

Such as he was, however, he took the field. He 
had been powerfully aided by the efforts of a Press 
which with unexampled perseverance and ability had 
stimulated the movement and bolstered the character 
of its leader. “ Who dares to say he will not follow 
where O’Brien leads ?” was the language of the su])- 
pressed Nation. 

One thing was clearly seen:—the advantageous 
issue of the first collision, whatever it might be, would 
be the signal for a general rising, and of course in- 



21 


sure the immediate formation of an insurgent army. It 
was therefore of the very last importance to succeed 
in whatever attempt was earliest made. O’Brien 
knew this, and as he had his choice of time, place, 
and enemy, it was to be expected that he might easily 
secure the first victory at all events. 

Accordingly, a singularly favourable opportunity 
presented itself A small force of police, which was to 
have formed part of a combined movement, by some 
over-eagerness of the officer in command had ap¬ 
proached the place of rendezvous before the appoint¬ 
ed time. In a lonely district, far from any assistance, 
this handful of men found itself hemmed in by a body, 
such as it was, of rebels, so overwhelmingly superior 
in numbers, that no discipline, plan, or courage, could 
avail to make resistance effectual for any length of 
time in an open country. 

They accordingly retreated on the nearest place of 
shelter they could descry, having neither time nor 
opportunity to choose a position.” 

But, as luck would have it, they happened upon a 
little fortress in the wilderness ! Probably their own 
barracks would not have proved so strong and tena¬ 
ble a place as the widow Cormack’s “castle andbawn.” 
I need not enter upon a narrative which has been 
dinned into everybody’s ears. O’Brien and his army 
were beaten off,— and the rebellion was at an end ! 

This was a very “ lucky” circumstance indeed. 

And here a topic suggests itself,—a topic, perhaps, 
of all that I could enumerate, the most important. 


22 


I had conceived that the alternative I had offered 
in a former publication, under one or the other term 
of which the pen of history would have to include 
the conduct of the most influential body of men in 
this country, was not to be escaped from. 

Events have shown that I was mistaken. I have 
no desire to involve myself in the consequences of 
discussing a matter of the kind. Let me therefore 
content myself with hinting my opinion as to the 
ultimate policy of that conduct. It was a maxim of 
Napoleon’s, the greatest general of his own or per¬ 
haps any other age,—a maxim adopted by Wellington 
in the Peninsula, and fortified by examples at Pos- 
bach, Salamanca, and Boyalva,—that flank movements 
within reach of the enemy are rash and injudicious. 

I might add, as our last piece of “luck,” the Go¬ 
vernment of the country having fallen when it did 
into the hands of our present Viceroy. But on this 
head I shall have more to say by and by. 

I think it will be admitted that fortune has been 
on our side. I defy any one to show one favourable 
circumstance of an unexpected nature, or beyond the 
control of the parties, marking the career of insur¬ 
rection in Ireland this year. 

Now, although I should probably find it a hard 
matter to convince the sceptical section of our school 
of disaffection, I must at least expect to have consci¬ 
entious believers in natural and revealed religion of 

O 

all creeds and parties with me, when I assert that there 


23 


/tb' no such thing as considered as an element in- 

lluencing natural events. Let the careless infidel sneer, 
or the discontented casuist explain matters away as 
he will, still no man who acknowledges an overrul¬ 
ing Providence will dare to assert that a single in¬ 
cident in the world’s history, from the minutest trifie 
which passes over unobserved even by the bystander, 
to the grandest event that shakes nations, happens 
by chance, or without its design. 

Nay, more,—he must admit that human events 
are carried forward by a design which is at once 
wise in its operation and beneficent in its inten¬ 
tion ; that the general good of the great human fa¬ 
mily is its scope ; and that it is intended that man 
should be able to recognise its wisdom, justice, and 
propriety. 

I cannot anticipate, at least, that the conscientious 
Ron]an Catholic will for an instant question the 
truth which lies at the root of his religion in com¬ 
mon with all Christian creeds, or that he will refuse to 
acknowledge that the events of this momentous year, 
as those of every other since the world first emerged 
from the darkness of eternity, have been swayed by 
an irresistible Providence for some purposes, the ulti¬ 
mate tendency of which is the benefit of mankind in 
general. 

In this view, then, I repeat, history is indeed in¬ 
structive. We discover providential agencies mix¬ 
ing, like Homer’s gods, with the strife of men, and 
observe the most casual circumstances co-operating 



24 


with the most important, to illustrate the laws of 
eternal justice. 

It is instructive; because, while it is calculated on 
the one hand to check the presumption which would 
ascribe success to means in an unqualified sense, on 
the other, it inspires confidence in the means we ac¬ 
tually use, as long as they are directed to the attain¬ 
ment of objects which help to carry out the dispensa¬ 
tions of an overruling power. 

And this brings us to the other side of the ques¬ 
tion. Acts, in the long run, succeed in proportion 
to the skill with which they are performed. In other 
words, natural effects proceed in general from na¬ 
tural and ascertainable causes. And in this view 
I am ready to make the arguer a present of his “ luck.” 
Fortune is admitted, even by its worshippers, to be 
a fickle goddess. 

Nullum numenhabes, si sit prudentia: Nos te. 

Nos facimus, Fortuna, Deam, coeloque locamus. 

I know that there is many a wretch now grinding 
in secret disappointment over his rusting pike-head, 
who comforts himself with the reflection,—“ we shall 
have better luck the next time.” 

I never knew a gambler who had lost his money, 
who did not complain of his “ luck.” 

Yet it is well known that skill, even in gambling, 
will in the long run command success ; because 
while chance, as it is called, is an element which is 
essentially capricious, and cannot rest permanently 


25 


Avith either party, skill, on the contrary, is a per¬ 
manent quality; therefore, in any encounter in 
which art is applied to fortuitous combinations, the 
results will vary with the degree of art brought to 
the contest. 

Hence, what is popularly called “ luck” generally 
runs with the best player. 

Now, subordinately to what must be considered 
as providential in the occurrences of this year, it 
was a game of skill, in which the energies of both 
parties were taxed to the uttermost. 

And it is on this account that I have taken care 
to introduce the circumstance of Lord Clarendon 
having been appointed to the viceroyalty of Ireland 
when he was, amongst the fortunate accidents of 
the juncture. Had his policy been a weak, vacil¬ 
lating, temporizing, or timorous policy, things might 
have turned out very differently from what they did. 

It would be easy to show, by a re-enumeration of 
the events which concurred for our advantage, that 
those very circumstances might, if they had been 
unskilfully used, have strengthened the hands of 
the adverse party. 

Had Lord Clarendon faltered, or exhibited im¬ 
patience or irritability of temper,—had he mistimed 
his acts,—had he recognised religious distinctions in 
political matters,—had he armed the citizens of Dub¬ 
lin,—or confided in its corporation,—or distrusted 
the police force,—all might have been lost : “ luck” 
would have deserted us. 




26 


I have judged it needful to dwell upon these de¬ 
tails, not as a mere study for the politician or mora¬ 
list, but to re-assure the public mind, which, in spite 
of the grand results of this year’s struggle, is deeply 
depressed as it looks forward to Ireland’s future 
prospects. 

How this country shall be materially regenerated, 
—how the chief reforms she now wants, reforms in 
the habits and condition of the population,—may be 
best promoted, it is not the province of a nameless 
scribe to point out. A word I have said, indeed, on a 
former occasion, to the people, in the w^ay of advice. 
I addressed them, because I thought a little common 
sense kindly spoken might really help them in their 
endeavours to better their condition. But to the 
upper and middle classes, it is the philosopher, the 
statesman, and the divine, who must address them¬ 
selves didactically. The deepest wisdom, the most 
venerable experience, the most exemplary philan¬ 
thropy, may here find full exercise ; the social soil 
of Ireland is rich enough to repay any amount of 
skill and labour that could be employed upon it. 

The humble task I have now been fulfilling is to 
encourage you, the good and loyal subjects of Her 
Majesty around me, by reminding you that the cir¬ 
cumstances that have inspired gratitude for the past 
should suggest hope for the future ; and that it is 
weakness to allow the miseries you deplore either to 
tempt you, by the slightest recognition of revolution, 
to “fly to others that you know not of,”—or to trans- 




27 


fix you in despair, like landsmen in a sinking ship, 
to await the catastrophe your exertions might help 
to avert. 

In France, indeed, the Dictator under the new 
republic,—that is.the Autocrat of Freedom ,—deemed 
it expedient expressly to call forth the energies 
of the pamphleteer. It would be something ludi¬ 
crous, if it were not melancholy, to see a power 
thrown up by the seething of the cauldron into 
which the ingredients of the social system had been 
so recklessly cast, driven to subsidize the talents 
of the philosopher and political economist for the 
avowed purpose of imbuing society with right ideas 
on the elementary principles of that very social po¬ 
lity its own existence practically impugns. Neverthe¬ 
less it is a fact that General Cavaignac lately called 
upon the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences 
to teach the people of France the alphabet of moral 
duty; and that, in obedience to the summons, the 
said Academy has undertaken to issue, “ under the 
authority of its name,” periodical publications, “ in 
the form oftracts^^ upon all the questions within its 
province, and especially upon those in any way re¬ 
lating to “ social order!' 

The Academy further sets forth that, “ while they 
preserve the general and elevated character indis¬ 
pensable to the labours of science, to the Memoirs of 
an Academy, these little treatises must be as clear 
and concise as the matters discussed in them will 
permit:” — that they will appear at least once a 


28 


fortnight, and in parts of from sixty to a hundred 
pages each. 

Moreover, the Academy, in its sitting of Satur¬ 
day, the 12th of August, 1848, thus approaches 
General Cavaignac: 

“ Most accurate was the judgment which dis¬ 
cerned that science may aid politics, by addressing 
to the nations the language of common sensed 

Finally, the Academy delivers itself in the fol¬ 
lowing words: 

“ It will endeavour to enunciate, in energetic but 
simple language, those fundamental truths upon 
which every society stands, and which are even still 
more essential to a democratic than to any other 
society. A society which dates only from itself, 
which aspires to cast aside all prejudices, all con¬ 
ventionalities, all fiction, can only be held together 
by reason! Such is at this moment the condition 
of republican France. The first right of the people 
is the right to the truth!” 

The leading tract is from the pen of M. Victor 
Cousin, and is entitled “ Justice and Charity;” and 
there are others issued, upon the Right of Property, 
the Unequal Distribution of Wealth, &c. 

Well, Menenius is a private individual, with no 
academy at his back or dictator at his elbow ; and 
yet he has both anticipated the French design, and 
moreover, as he conceives, avoided some mistakes 
which the Academy and the Academician have alike 
fallen into. 


29 


He has made no efFort to render his Petits Traites 
“ general” or “ elevated,” like a “ labour of science ” 
or an “ academic memoir.” He believes that, if he 
had succeeded in doing so, he would only have re¬ 
stricted their circulation to the class to which they 
could be of the least use. 

And he has taken the very opposite course to that 
adopted by M. Victor Cousin, in his pamphlet of 
Justice and Charity ;” for whereas the French 
philosopher has thought it needful to set out by 
teaching man how he is great in his intellect and 
in his liberty,”—how he is “ nobler than the uni¬ 
verse,” and soforth,—Menenius, on the contrary, has 
taken it for granted that man’s own nature has 
given him quite enough of instruction on tliis head, 
and has accordingly confined himself to the rather 
more needful task of reminding him how narrow, 
after all, is this boasted intellect of his,—how inap¬ 
preciably small is the fragment of liberty he can, at 
the best, call his own. 

Under that great and comprehensive Code, of 
which all others ought to be the reflection, man has 
a duty as regards his neighbour, viz., to do as he would 
be done by,—but none enjoined towards himself; 
and the reason is obvious: because Nature had fore¬ 
stalled all positive codes by implanting the princi¬ 
ples of pride and selfishness in the human breast, 
which will always prove sufficient to neutralize any 
danger to man’s proper dignity and true interests 
that could be apprehended from the influence of 
moral teaching. 


30 


What a stinging commentary on the nouveau re¬ 
gime is this dictatorial attempt at the duodecimo 
regeneration of a demoralized nation ! “ A society 

[of political fanatics] can only be held together by 
reason !” And lo ! a two-penny tract ! “We have 
lured you across the threshold of duty, and blown 
up the home of your habits behind you ;—here is a 
brick, begin to build again!’’ W^hen a witty country¬ 
man of ours once taunted the minister of the day 
with the fraudulent arrangement of his political 
balance-sheet, he made him read one of the items 
of the account thus : “ I have involved you in a 
war with Tippoo Saib;—here, take your candles a 
halfpenny cheaper in the pound !” But this French 
pamphlet-scheme is worse ; for the discharge is at¬ 
tempted to be made by paper payment secured, 
exactly as the assignats were, upon the very fund on 
which the robbery was originally committed. If I 
might parody Byron’s celebrated allusion to Kirke 
White, it was writing to the goose to respect the 
rights of property, with a quill feloniously abstracted 
from her own win" ! 

O 

No,—a government, to dare to dictate morals to 
a people, must exhibit the principles of true mora¬ 
lity in its origin, character, and constitution. What¬ 
ever the Academy might have thought proper to do 
authoritatively in that sacred cause, ought to have 
been its own spontaneous act. Its ostensible sanc¬ 
tion to these tracts goes for nothing, so long as the 
fact remains upon its minutes, that it steps forth in 


31 


defence of social order at the nod of a military 
despot, who owes his own elevation to the de- 
tlironement of his king, and the demoralization of 
his country. Better, far better, the free strictures 
of the dreaded “ Timon,” the Yicomte de Corme- 
nin, who lies in wait, like a lion-ant, for the succes¬ 
sive slips of these self-constituted patriots. Where 
no one has exhibited principle enough to inculcate 
principle without hypocrisy, it is well that unprinci¬ 
pled persons should know, at least, that a rod hangs 
over them. 

It is time to turn from France, with its vain-glo¬ 
rious degradation, its self-complacent misery, its 
practical licentiousness, and its theoretic virtues. 
Sermons may be read in stones; the strange conglo¬ 
merate made up of the debris of so many former 
political systems has proved a homily for us. We 
may now, with our judgments purified by the lesson, 
return to matters nearer home. 

I have said that it exhibits weakness as well as pro¬ 
fligacy, to urge forward the violent subversion of so¬ 
ciety, in order to get at the bottom of admitted evils. 
This proposition, although it has been held to admit 
of exceptions, is nevertheless considered true as a 
rule. The chief exception is generally stated to be 
the case of a nation lying powerless in the hands 
of a despotism, without a constitution. But it has 
been further questioned whether, even with a con¬ 
stitution and a form of freedom, a people in a 


32 


depressed condition may not plead such condition 
as a justification of the forcible endeavour to create 
for itself a constitution more likely to advance its in¬ 
terests, once it has failed in obtaining its ends 
through the ordinary and recognised channels. 

Now, as to the first case, it is fortunately not ne¬ 
cessary to enter upon it, since none but men who 
are determined not to be convinced in the usual way 
on any subject, attempt to assert that it is ours. 
The figurative terms, “slaves,’^ “tyrants,’^ “ despots,’’ 
“ serfs,” “ hereditary bondsmen,” &c., fade before the 
light of argument, as the Bear, the Scorpion, and the 
Hydra of the heavens resolve themselves into less 
terrific combinations under the simplest processes of 
scientific inquiry. 

But there is more in the latter class of exceptions; 
especially as the language in which they are stated 
is itself vague and of various import. “ Constitu¬ 
tion,” “ liberty,” “ people,”—there are scarcely any 
terms less settled ; but it would be so dry a task 
to set about drawing lines and fixing definitions, 
that I should dismiss the topic at once, but that I 
think the whole question may be argued on higher 
grounds than any which involve a necessity for such 
strictness, because upon grounds of general expe¬ 
diency and of principle,—two abstractions which, in 
my estimation, necessarily go hand in hand one 
with the other. 

I have studied a good deal of what has been written 
and spoken on that comprehensive subject, “ the 



33 


Irish Question,” from the dry debates of the House 
to the poetical effusions of the ''Nation'' school: and 
it strikes me that the principal argument our mal¬ 
contents rely upon, resolves itself into this syllogism. 
—Misgovernment has a natural tendency to produce 
pauperism and discontent; but the Irish are dis¬ 
contented paupers; therefore, Irish pauperism and 
discontent are produced by misgovernment. 

The logician knows how at once to expose the fal¬ 
lacy of such reasoning. To make the conclusion legi¬ 
timate, he will tell you you must alter your “ major 
premiss,” as it is technically termed,—that is, the first 
proposition—into this,— a//pauperism and discontent 
are produced by misgovernment; Avhich would be a 
petitio primipii, i. e., begging the question, or assum¬ 
ing the very point at issue. 

For I do join issue with the disaffected party on 
this ground. I say that there may be another cause, 
or a combination of various causes, for poverty and 
its attendant discontent, beside that of misgovern¬ 
ment ; and that it were easy to prove this, in theory 
and by example. 

But there is a further element in the inquiry, which 
seems to be left out by the common consent of these 
sophists. They would have us forget, that although 
past misgovernment may account for what we are, 
including our poverty and discontent, nothing short 
of present misgovernment can be admitted as an ar¬ 
gument for the necessity of radical change. Indeed 
Mr. Holmes’s laboured proofs of Great Britain’s mis- 

c 



34 


taken policy in former times have a tendency to de¬ 
feat the main proposition he would himself base upon 
them. Because, if they hold good, they point to the 
causes of what is charged against the Present, in the 
irrevocable Past; and thus altogether remove the ob¬ 
jection to a present policy derivable from the actual 
present condition of the country. Everybody admits 
that the restoration of social prosperity amongst a 
people must at all times, and under the most favour¬ 
able circumstances,be extremely gradual; and every 
one likewise admits, that the state of this country 
has latterly been such as to render it absolutely 
impossible that it could have advanced appreciably 
in wealth or civilization under any political sys¬ 
tem. From hence it follows, that if Mr. Holmes 
be right,—and I am not now going to impugn his 
facts,—if the policy of England towards this coun¬ 
try was indeed uniformly a repressive policy;—con¬ 
sidering that such a policy must have produced 
fruits calculated to survive its own existence;—re¬ 
collecting too how slow is the process of national re¬ 
generation;—and finally, observing that individual 
influences and natural causes combine at the present 
moment to check any forward movement:—I say, 
it follows on Mr. Holmes’s own showing, that we 
should be particularly cautious how we allow ap¬ 
pearances to sway our judgment as to governmental 
policy in dealing with Ireland; for since mischief 
enough is assumed to have been done in old times 
to account ibr all the misery and ill-humour we see, 




35 


nobody has a right to pronounce sentence against 
the Present on the evidence of that poverty and dis¬ 
content alone. 

There is much, after all, in the temper with which 
a past policy is reviewed. Mr. Macaulay, for instance, 
in his new history, sometimes bears nearly as hard 
upon England for its English misrule, as Mr. Holmes 
for its Irish. 

I could easily show that, in spite of everything, 
we have advanced. Certainly up to 1844 our pro¬ 
gress was steady and decided. But it should be borne 
in mind that the continuation of misery, or even its 
increase, cannot always be taken as decisive evidence 
against the wisdom displayed by a Government in its 
policy, or of a legislative body in its enactments. It 
must be ascertained how much of that misery, or of its 
aggravation, is to be laid to the two obstructing influ¬ 
ences already adverted to, before we can pronounce 
an opinion upon the positive propriety of particular 
measures. For unless the effect of those measures 
shall prove more than counteractive of the depre¬ 
ciating influences, the result of the two, acting upon 
a people, will still fail to elevate its condition. If 
the possibility of such a case be conceded,—that is, 
if it be admitted that an unlimited amount of agita¬ 
tion, promoted by individuals for an indefinite length 
of time, will neutralize a wise policy, and that a visi¬ 
tation of Providence may cause starvation and con¬ 
sequent discontent in the most prosperous country,— 
then I have gained my point,—we are not in all 

c2 


36 


cases to decide the question of good or bad govern¬ 
ment by tlie condition of the people or by popular 
manifestations at any particular juncture. Reciollect, 
I admit pauperism and discontent to he primd facie 
evidence of misgovernment; but evidence capable of 
being rebutted by a fair exposition of the whole case. 
If on the one hand we find measures of a tendency 
admittedly beneficial—adopted, moreover, in compli¬ 
ance with the demands of the people—following each 
other in an uninterrupted succession year after year; 
—and if, on the other, we observe agitation pursued 
as a trade, until the demoralization of the people is 
as complete as the corruption of the system by which 
it is carried on ;—if we see a population, thus jaun¬ 
diced and thus disabled, struck by a natural visi¬ 
tation, which turns poverty into starvation, and dis¬ 
content into despair ; —if, I say, we take in at one 
comprehensive glance both sides of the picture, shall 
we not see occasion to hesitate before we pronounce 
the one misgovernment, and the other the evidence 
of it ? 

Any man of plain common sense will perceive 
that legislation for Ireland must, as she stands at 
present, be carried on without the hope of imme¬ 
diately satisfying the requirements of any one class 
of the sufferers The famishing masses will be 
(‘onteiit with nothing less than a general resump¬ 
tion and redistribution of property ; wdiile the land- 
-lords, whose means of subsistence fail with the ruin 
of their tenants, and who are called upon to sup¬ 
port them exactly at the time when they cannot 



support themselves, naturally refuse to die and 
make no sign.’’ Yet it is the duty of a Legislature 
to avoid being carriedaway by the discontent of either 
class, in its deliberations for the general advantage 
of the community. And the reason is this, that it must 
not satisfy one complainant by doing injustice to the 
other. It should not rob Peter to pay Paul. It must 
work with the materials it finds to hand; it can create 
no new ones. Parliament — or Government—is 
nothing more than ourselves, in our legislative or 
executive capacity, dealing with our own resources 
for our own benefit. That is, it is the aggregate of 
the seifs of the community, prescribing for each in¬ 
dividual the conduct he ought of his own accord to 
adopt, if his mind were capable of viewing his own 
position, and that of others, from a sufficient eleva¬ 
tion. 

Well, then, since legislation and government may 
have become good, and yet misery and discontent 
survive from an earlier regime amongst a people,— 
since, in the case of Ireland, the measures of govern¬ 
ment have of late years been admittedly concilia¬ 
tory and concessive, while the misery and discontent 
may be accounted for—the one by a natural visita¬ 
tion, the other by pernicious teaching,—it follows 
that tlie whole of the arguments of Mr. Holmes and 
his friends, so far as they are based upon the pre¬ 
sent material and moral aspect of this country, must 
fall to the ground. 

But the conclusions drawn from such reasoning 
enter, as premises, into tlie argument for revolution. 


38 


With the subversion of the original argument, then, 
the question of the absolute necessity for change is 
also disposed of 

Let us, however, assume bad government, in any 
community where a form of liberty exists,—and even 
there a violent political convulsion is impolitic. 
“ The time, we trust, is coming,” says an Edinburgh 
Reviewer^ “ though it may be yet distant, when na¬ 
tions will discover by a comprehensive historic in¬ 
duction, that armed revolutions, wherever there is 
the shadow of a constitutional government, are never 
likely to payT That is, revolution is unwise, consi¬ 
dered as a matter of expediency. The benefits it 
proposes are not attained, or not best attained, by 
its means. To rouse the masses to rage, because they 
may have felt just discontent, is, to use the expres¬ 
sion adopted by the same writer, “ to cast out devils 
through Beelzebub.” 

The reasons why revolution will not pay are too 
various to be entered on here. All government 
owes its stability in a great measure to the habit of 
obedience in the people. Once this is interrupted, 
even a good government wants holding-ground in 
the human heart. The liberty to rebel, achieved 
against authorities sanctioned by customary reve¬ 
rence and ancient prescription, will be still more 
lightly exercised against governments of one’s own 
manufacture. But it is the existence of a rebellious 
spirit in a community that most demoralises society, 
paralyses speculation, and destroys credit. 


39 


And tills brings me to what in my estimation is 
the main question,—the 7noralit^ of revolution. 

I know how lax the ideas of mankind are on this 
head. Perhaps there is no topic on which the or¬ 
dinary rules of ethics have been more universally 
set aside, even by persons and parties in other things 
actuated by a high sense of principle. Revolution 
is in our day held to be a thing not amenable to 
ordinary rules. It has some inherent sanctity, or 
self-justifying power. Revolution in practice, like 
the king in theory, “ can do no wrong.” It is ad¬ 
mitted to be a last resort, it is true ; but what cir¬ 
cumstances constitute the ultimatujYi of oppres¬ 
sion on the one hand, and of endurance on the 
other, seems to be left to the issue of the revolu¬ 
tionary struggle to determine. A revolution is a 
successful rebellion; and if the rebellion had not 
succeeded, the world would have been quite ready 
to denounce it as such. It is the success that gives 
to the whole proceeding ah initio a new character : 
it has a retrospective effect, and pronounces the 
eternal amnesty of posterity in the ears of the vic¬ 
tors. 

But all this authority will not satisfy me, as long 
as there is a moral law, paramount, positive, and of 
universal application. It will not suffice to show me 
characters in history of undying fame, who have 
been installed as patriots after the success of revo¬ 
lutions. I boldly look to the morality of their acts 
at the time they were performed, and refuse to admit 



40 


that any change of political circumstances can alter 
their intrinsic nature. Nor will it suffice to show 
me the benefits which have accrued to nations from 
revolution. This does not go an inch towards jus¬ 
tifying the deeds, in themselves criminal, which have 
brought it about. Pestilence thins population, and 
gives room. The fire of London stopped the plague. 
But you do not on that account defend the wholesale 
poisoning of a metropolis, or the act of the incendiary 
who might set it on fire. Many “patriots,” I am 
convinced, will discover that they will be judged by 
a more rigid code than that of the historian,—all of 
them, at least, who, with an option before them, and a 
“shadow” of freedom to protect them, countenanced 
an intermediate evil before the achievement of a pro¬ 
spective good. I turn sternly away from the prevail¬ 
ing latitudinarianism, and ask, what is the use of our 
Christianity ? What are the services of a thousand 
churches intended for ? What does the devotion of 
millions of worshippers mean ? Is it all humhug^ this 
monstrous, monotonous, costly, and cumbrous ma¬ 
chinery of RELIGION ? If it be not^ then there can 
be little need to argue the matter more at length. 

And I go farther. I am convinced, judging by 
the uniform tenor of providential dispensations, that 
the very objects proposed and effectuated by forced 
revolutions, if the veil which hides contingencies 
were but removed, would be found to be attaina¬ 
ble more completely and permanently by means in 
themselves legitimate. What might not have been 


41 


our condition by this time, if the genius and energy 
of O’Connell and the party he created had been 
employed in the agitation of industry, honesty, and 
virtue ? In France, where we have had the best 
means of judging, it is now seen that the atrocities 
of the first revolution brought their own punishment 
along with them, and that the phantom of liberty, 
which enticed the people into lawlessness and crime, 
eluded the blood-stained grasp that snatched at it. 
The boasted goddess of Reason was herself the one 
to refuse happiness to any claim short of virtue. 
Had that country reformed her religion and her mo¬ 
rality before she sought to overthrow the political 
fabric, she would, I feel confident, have found that 
fabric at length opening its iron doors, as if at some 
resistless mandate, for the admission of the excluded 
classes, and have borne thereout in the end a constitu¬ 
tion which might have survived to the present day, a 
blessing to herself and the admiration of Europe. 

The carcasses of those who went out of Egypt 
whitened the sands of the desert. Not a man who 
sinned in the wilderness entered the promised land. 

My confidence amounts to certainty of this, indeed, 
that, as far as the individual actor goes, an act of rebel¬ 
lion can never be innocent, as long as any other 
alternative remains. But such an alternative is sup¬ 
posed always to exist in the case we are considering, 
—that of a free constitution. Recollect I do not go 
the length of saying, that forcible resistance to the 
arbitrary exercise of power can in no case be justi- 


42 


liable ; or, in other words, that revolution must, 
from its very nature, be criminal. Just as I would 
avoid pinning myself to the assertion, that there is 
no exception to the command against killing. I 
know that the law which forbids murder, justifies 
homicide under certain circumstances. But I am 
not driven to enter upon a subtle question of 
casuistry or of abstract right. On the contrary, I 
guarded my reasoning at the outset, by restricting 
it to a class of cases such as may be supposed to 
include our own ; and I will not allow myself to 
be drawn into speculations with which I have no¬ 
thing to do. It is more to the purpose to establish 
the principle, that a man is seldom in a position to 
say beforehand how much good an act of equivocal 
morality may in any case achieve ; and that we 
can none of us attempt to prove that a greater 
amount of benefit has been ultimately derived to the 
human race by any successful civil war, than would 
have been by a continuance of internal tranquillity. 
The very effect of the immoral example on the minds 
of the community, for instance, may have more than 
neutralized its political value. In this country, let 
the landlord, the capitalist, the magistrate,—nay, the 
priest, witness to the direct evils of insurrection. 
Where are the boasted virtues of the O’Connell pe¬ 
riod, when the “Liberator” preached morality to the 
people, as temperance is enjoined to a prize-fighter, 
not for its intrinsic good, but for the use to he made of 
it ? Father Matthew, they say, cannot walk through 


43 


the streets of Cork, the head-quarters of his amiable 
mission, without being shouldered by the inebriated 
wretches he had pledged to perpetual temperance. 
So much for agitation. It has done, I am convinced, 
more to degrade, brutalize, unchristianize, the Irish 
mind, than all the “ wrongs” which England is said to 
have inflicted on this country since the twelfth cen¬ 
tury. 

From all this I infer: 

First, That Ireland does not present the aspect 
of a country in which the necessity for revolution is 
apparent. 

Secondly, That, supposing she did, an armed re¬ 
volution does not accomplish the objects it sets 
before it. 

Thirdly, That, even if there were a reasonable 
prospect of attaining the benefits proposed, armed re¬ 
volution is, under a constitution such as ours, crimi¬ 
nal and unjustifiable in the highest degree, and cal¬ 
culated to induce the anger of God. 

The farther back we stand from a period, the bet¬ 
ter we can see its outline and true character. The 
ear detects the play of the national constitution more 
accurately by that mediate auscultation in which time 
is interposed between the examiner and the events. 
And it is after such comprehensive modes of investiga¬ 
tion that the inquirer will best see in history the con¬ 
firmation of the moral and Christian aphorism, that 
the laws prescribed to individuals are binding on com¬ 
munities ; and as long as it is a crime as regards 


44 


man, and a sin as regards God, to steal because we 
are hungry, or kill because we are exasperated, will for¬ 
cible spoliation be indefensible under circumstances 
of public distress, and armed insurrection unjustifi¬ 
able, even though public discontent should exist. 

There is a clue to all this. The true philosopher 
is able to discern, by an argument d posteriori, that 
the positive enactments of the divine codes of both 
Testaments are only confirmatory of the pre-existing 
laws of nature, which by their constitution regulate 
the happiness of the human race according to its obe¬ 
dience to, or violation of, certain immutable princi¬ 
ples connatural with what we call Nature herself 
Those codes were given to help man to his own hap¬ 
piness ; and obedience to them is rather recom¬ 
mended for his good, than inculcated for his restraint. 
Just as a general adopts the plan of punishing sol¬ 
diers who stray beyond the lines, when he appre¬ 
hends that the enemy will cut off such of his men 
as they find straggling within their reach. 

Do I advocate the doctrine of “ passive obedience,” 
and “ the divine right of kings?” Whoever remem¬ 
bers the old Tory arguments of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury, must acquit me of holding such doctrines. But 
I maintain the necessity of active obedience, and de¬ 
fend the constitutional influence of a limited mo¬ 
narchy like ours. 

In such old institutions as coexist with the prin¬ 
ciple of freedom, but especially in the British, there 
is a remarkable power of adjustment to the require¬ 
ments ofmankind, without reconstruction. Within the 


45 


amplitude of British liberty, a code, a creed, a con¬ 
stitution, may thus become self-adapted to the spirit 
of the times. England is too vast, too rich, too 
powerful, too good for a revolution. A free public 
opinion secures for her what revolution never could. 
Her constitution does not exist on parchment, or in 
a charter, like those of France and America. It is 
a flux, intangible thing. There is nothing fixed in 
it, but its stability. It is the lex non scripta of a 
nation. England, possessing it, is a vast Windsor 
Castle, built in the feudal times, but gradually 
adapted for the modern residence of Imperial Ma¬ 
jesty, without the demolition of a single tower of the 
original structure. 

That our constitution is thus plastic, ought to give 
hopes even to the man who sees no chance for our 
country except in sweeping political changes. There 
is scarcely any amount of reform that might not be 
accomplished in time, peaceably and permanently, by 
the operation of public opinion. 

I am no enemy to reform. On the contrary, I 
am convinced it is necessary that legislation should 
be constantly at work to keep pace with the public 
requirements; and I hold that men ought to bestir 
themselves in the direction of such improvement. 

, But I think the great mistake in this country lies 
here, that tlie different classes and grades of men do 
not employ themselves at that part of the political 
machinery which the constitution has intended them 
to be occupied upon, and which will keep the whole 
machine in the best working order. 


46 


It is clear that it is not either for a nation’s pros¬ 
perity, freedom, or happiness, that every man should 
be a politician, in the conventional sense of the term. 
But every man can be, and should be, a politician, 
within his own sphere, and where the constitution 
has afforded him an opportunity of being so. 

I say, every man can be a politician within his 
own sphere. What is at the bottom of the prosperity 
and glory of a country? The industry, intelligence, 
and integrity of its individual inhabitants. Were 
all industrious, and all virtuous, I believe it will be 
admitted that the nation must be great and flou¬ 
rishing. 

The political act, then, which every man may per¬ 
form, is to work hard, learn diligently, and live ho¬ 
nestly himself, and to encourage knowledge, labour, 
and probity, to the best of his ability, in those he 
can influence. 

This is what everybody can do, down to the 
lowest of the low. It is what nobody is exempted 
from doing, up to the noblest of the noble. 

As you ascend from below, or descend from 
above, there are innumerable intermediate stafres, 
in which the sphere of action is more or less ex¬ 
panded or circumscribed; but in all there are cer¬ 
tain points of legitimate contact with the consti¬ 
tution. 

The country gentleman has quite enough to do 
between the fiscal and general business of grand 
juries, parish business, poor-law business, magiste¬ 
rial business, registration business, and election 


47 


business, beside his own business, without busying 
himself more immediately with the general affairs 
of the nation. 

This is the political business the constitution per¬ 
mits him to perform. It is his duty to perform it well 
and conscientiously. If he has done so, he is of use 
to the state. 

But what is the case in Ireland? Scarcely a class 
attends exclusively to its own affairs. Each lias a han¬ 
kering after the concerns of those above it. Our law¬ 
yers must be legistators,—or demagogues,—or else 
grumble at the lot that has chained them to Ireland; 
our corporation displays the pomposity of a burlesque 
parliament; our country gentlemen usurp the power 
and out-do the jobbing of a provincial aristocracy; 
our “squireens” shoulder themselves up to the magis¬ 
terial bench and the grand jury room; our shop¬ 
keepers and our very farmers affect to spout the poli¬ 
tics and poetry of the ''Nation'' with an air of dignity; 
—every grade of society walks on tip-toe, and stum¬ 
bles over its own affairs in the effort to reach up to 
to those of its superiors. 

This, I venture to affirm, is our grand national 
mistake,—and everybody might foresee that in such 
a case the wheels of the constitution could not 
run smoothly. We are now threatened with beg¬ 
gary, because we were not content to be respectable; 
and find ourselves involved in rebellion, because we 
neglected to use our proper influence in the consti¬ 
tution, and then discovered that things did not turn 
out to our wish. 



48 


No form of government will work well, unless 
you who live under it act so as to give it fair play:— 
and with a constitution possessing a democratic in¬ 
fusion such as ours, you never would have to com¬ 
plain of Government if you did your own duty. For, 
after all, what is a free government, but the concen¬ 
trated power of the social system ? If that system 
be sound,—if society lend itself to carry it out effi¬ 
ciently,—you can no more be afflicted with an unpo¬ 
pular government, than a hale constitution can ex¬ 
hibit wasted muscle, or a pallid cheek. And on the 
other hand, in a system which works ill, it is not in 
the power of those who are placed at the head of 
affiiirs, no matter how strictly they may perform their 
duty, either to satisfy the popular demands, or to 
effect with certainty the good they propose. Disaf¬ 
fection is frequently another form of self-condemna¬ 
tion. We blame the errors of those who publicly 
exhibit to us the result of our own individual mis¬ 
doings. We are remiss in our own sphere ; and then 
complain of those who reflect that remissness in baf¬ 
fled policy and ineffectual legislation. 

If tlie deluded mob, whicli went shouting for so 
many years at the heels of O’Connell, learning from 
him what a wonderfully fine peasantry they were, 
and nothing else, had stayed at home, and, perceiv¬ 
ing their own deficiencies, improved their system of 
agriculture, they might, by the year 1846, have been 
in a condition to stand the failure of the potato-crop 
without a famine. 

If those country gentlemen, who with inadequate 


49 


resources put forward inordinate pretensions, had 
set about retrenchment and the nursing of their 
estates when they might have done so with safety 
and honour, instead of plunging into the gambling 
speculations of a period of monetary excitement, with 
the desperate alternative before them of support¬ 
ing their false position or of ruin, they might have 
found themselves now strong enough to bear the 
pressure of the times and pauper support, with¬ 
out breaking down the entire class to which they 
belong. 

If the body of electors in Ireland had, during the 
last twenty years, looked to the general qualifica¬ 
tions of the candidates for seats in Parliament, in¬ 
stead of returning anybody, no matter whom, who 
would pledge himself on a particular question of no 
practical utility, rendering himself in fact the tool of 
a faction by which the true interests of Ireland were 
every day frittered away in intrigue, cabal, and 
the game of party, they would have found that their 
strength in the Imperial Parliament was sufficient 
for all the purposes of our country, and, in fact, 
irresistible in any serious effort; and there would 
not, at this time of day, exist that ignorance of Irish 
affairs in the house, Avhich is attributable partly to 
the meagerness of information possessed by the 
Irish members themselves, but principally to that 
want of confidence in information derived from Irish 
sources which unhappily apathizes the earnestness 
of British inquirers. 

j) 


50 


All this is, I believe, felt very generally by well- 
disposed and impartial persons. It is the rough 
good sense which runs about the streets ;—and yet 
I am surprised that it is not more generally per¬ 
ceived how the present condition of the country 
necessarily flows, as effect from cause, from circum¬ 
stances ascertainable, and independent of good or 
bad government, the Union, the “Church grievance,’’ 
or any other popular subject of discontent. Land¬ 
lords whose fathers minced up their estates into 
morsels in order to create a parliamentary influence, 
now naturally complain of a superabundant popula¬ 
tion and over-division. The masses of the peasantry, 
who for years poured their superfluous earnings into 
the coffers of a central association, which promised 
them everything they ought never to expect, and 
nothing which they might reasonably look for, — now 
at last awakened to the delusiveness of those pro¬ 
mises, but not disabused as to their absurdity,— 
smitten by a visitation against which their own 
fruitless expenditure had left them no resource,— 
are now, as a matter of course, so much unresisting 
material in the hands of the incendiary and political 
conspirator. The manufactures of the towns, and 
their shopkeeping and trading interests, necessarily 
droop beneath the influence of an unceasing agita¬ 
tion, amounting to a system of terrorism, which 
frightens away capital, and discourages free and fre¬ 
quent expenditure. Each plan devised by Govern¬ 
ment for purposes of local or general economy is 


51 


neutralized and rendered abortive by the jobbing 
of intermediate agents; and then there is, as might 
be expected, a cry of clumsy machinery, or inade¬ 
quate grants. The course of justice is systemati¬ 
cally opposed by the great body of the people, and 
its administration impugned by men who assume to 
be their leaders ; and, as a natural consequence, the 
law frequently appears to work feebly, and its tribu¬ 
nals become objects of contempt. The minds of 
the bulk of the people are placed out at nurse with 
lay or secular brains-carriers, who take care, while 
they receive the wages of good service, to spoon-feed 
them with such intellectual aliment alone as suits 
their own interested objects. The result of which is, 
naturally again, that all the efforts of the state and of 
general civilization to enlighten them, with a view 
to their own benefit and advancement, are rejected: 
—distrust, discontent, and disaffection alone remain¬ 
ing on the national stomach. 

It is far from being agreeable to me to be obliged 
to speak so plainly. But I cannot do otherwise. 
This is no time for trifling. We are passing through 
a crisis scarcely less momentous than that of rebel¬ 
lion. The day of reckoning must come. With the 
meeting of Parliament these are topics that will be in 
everybody’s mouth ; we shall have startling innova¬ 
tions discussed on their merits,—sweeping retrench¬ 
ments suggested as feasible. I firmly believe that 
no changes short of such social ones as shall give a 
new ])osition to whole grades will be comprehensive 

1 ) 2 



52 


eiiougli. We must “ drop a class,” in fact, as they 
say in the University. The landlord must, under 
ordinary circumstances, become the practical agri¬ 
culturist ; the shopkeeper, his own foreman ; and 
the lofty politician of the bar, the laborious and un¬ 
ostentatious legal drudge, like his brother in London. 
There is nothing else for it. Retrenchment of posi¬ 
tion is inevitable. We shall be no worse than the 
corresponding class in England, or anywhere else. 
We shall occupy our right place. Some court-suits 
will be to be sold, no doubt; and certainly a whole 
Dycer’s” of carriages and horses must be brought 
to the hammer. But the thing must be done. If it 
be not- 

The alternative I am unwilling to supply. 

There are two classes of philosophers who un¬ 
dertake to make predictions concerning the destiny 
of mankind. 

One is your perfectionist. Under various names 
he has been of late pursuing his experiments over 
the explosive retorts of modern society, in hopes to 
reform the age, and by his cunning theories and mys¬ 
tic influences transmute it into that golden one in 
which misery will be unknown,—and he known. 

This personage is always discontented in propor¬ 
tion to the strength of his hallucination. Amused 
by the idea of a Utopia, he chafes at the tardiness or 
blindness of men who wish to preserve the conti¬ 
nuity of the past, instead of beginning anew, on his 



53 


plan. You will always find him in the forefront of 
any change; for he deems a radical one the best pre¬ 
liminary, and believes that to resolve society into its 
constituent molecules is to render it the more sus¬ 
ceptible of that new crystallization, under which its 
true lustre and beauty will come out most strongly. 
With him, Nature—or Providence—has made a mis¬ 
take from the beginning of the world. Whole la¬ 
chrymatories of unnecessary tears have been shed ; 
whole hecatombs of sacrifices needlessly offered to 
erroneous systems and creeds ; whole mausoleums 
of human hearts gratuitously broken over the failure 
of hopes that might, under his theories, have been 
realized in a moment. It remains, he believes, for him 
to discover the true principle of light—the dream 
of the Rosicrucian. Armed with these potent con¬ 
victions, he looks upon the struggles of the politician 
and the labours of the historian as alike contempti¬ 
ble,—the one being engaged in raking out the ruins 
of the past, for the other to misconstruct the future of. 

The other is your man of the world. With him 
the attempt at improvement is a subject of laughter. 
He has stored his memory with facts which prove 
the petty, disgraceful, or unforseen causes that have 
produced the greatest events. He can tell you that 
it was the Earl of Wiltshire’s dog, which bit Plis Holi¬ 
ness’s toe stretched forth for its master to kiss, that 
caused the Reformation. He will find you the selfish¬ 
ness of the most generous action,—the foibles of the 
noblest character. He will put his finger on an in- 



54 


consistency in the career of the purest statesman 
and patriot. His sagacity of evil is astonishing. I 
know men, and men of ability too, who are thorough 
sportsmen in this way ; whose noses can track out 
the doubling of the politician with the precision of a 
harrier, though their very attitude prevents them, all 
the time, from obtaining a prospect of the country 
they are going over. 

A man of this mould, when he comes to prophesy, 
has little to say that can cheer us. And, as the former 
class are for unlimited innovation, calculating with 
sanguine zeal on the development of new systems and 
the march of ideas, he adheres as steadily to received 
institutions, from the malign conviction that if theo¬ 
ries be various, human nature is the same; and that 
as long as men are to be the actors on the scene, pas¬ 
sions, prejudices, follies, whims, and inconsistencies 
will influence human events, pretty much as they 
have done from the beginning of the world. 

Between these two extremes the calm and contem¬ 
plative observer will discern the true perspective of 
human society. He will be ready to admit tliat as long 
as the world lasts the nature of man will remain in 
kind the same it has ever been, and that each ge¬ 
neration as it springs up will exhibit its own share 
of ignorance, absurdity, rashness, and depravity. He 
will concede that the impress of individual minds 
will continue from time to time to stamp itself upon 
national character, moulding it into unforeseen, un¬ 
welcome, and uncouth forms. He will count upon 


55 


the occasional failure of the best devised systems, and 
realize to himself the spectacle of political and social 
anomalies - hereafter confounding, as they have done 
through successive ages, the calculations of the scho¬ 
lar, statesman, and philosopher. 

But he will also see that, as time advances, and the 
truths of nature and revelation unfold themselves to 
the world, there is a progressive advance, by which 
a steady gain is secured to man, in virtue and happi¬ 
ness. The philosophical examination of history will 
enable him to discriminate between the successive 
rush and retreat of the waves of opinion, and the per¬ 
manent making of the tide of truth upon the shores 
of society ; and, encouraged by the survey, he will 
contemplate without terror junctures such as the 
present, in which what seemed the blue and beauti¬ 
ful swell as it advanced, has broken in froth and bub¬ 
bles upon the moles of ancient institutions, drawing 
back in ruin what it reached in strength. The fabric, 
he feels, which was not substantial enough to stand 
the shock, might “pass unbewailed away;” while what 
deserved to constitute the boundary between perma¬ 
nency and change,—between the Past and the Fu¬ 
ture,—he stands upon unmoved—he knows it will 
hold its ground. 

And he sees better times before him. Out of the 
chaos he perceives order to advance ; not by a mi¬ 
racle, or in the twinkling of an eye, or in celestial 
perfection,—but with a measured and solemn march 
to some consummation, the amount or period of 


56 


which he dares not conjecture, though he can argue 
its certainty with the confidence of an unshaken faith. 

A happy belief, this, for Irishmen ! A creed which, 
as by a sunbeam, dispels the gloomy superstition of 
the revolutionist, who, turning his back upon the 
wliole system of providential truth, would immolate 
to the idols he has set up those virtues, without 
which paradise itself to him would prove a wilder¬ 
ness. 

The real principle of progress may be illustrated 
by that noble image of Schiller’s, in which forcible 
revolution is likened to the track of the cannon-ball, 
—unswerving, breaking through every obstacle, but 
having its goal in ruin;—while the path of legitimate 
reform is made to resemble the course of the stream, 
pursuing its way onward by a gentle and winding 
course, respecting ancient boundaries, passing the 
corn-field and vineyard only to fertilize them, and 
bearing the blessings of earth to the bosom of the 
ocean. 

For my part, I will not allow myself to despond 
for a moment. I see hope for nations as well as for 
individuals, flowing from the same eternal sources. I 
realize to myself the gradual diminution of social mi¬ 
sery, strife, and crime. Premature as I believe the 
efforts of those well-meaning persons to be, who are 
seeking to bind communities by pledges of interna¬ 
tional amity, I yet trust that posterity may see the 
day when their benevolent intentions shall be carried 
out by the common and tacit consent of mankind. 


57 


Nothing but public opinion will ever form the true 
sanction of such pledges ; and public opinion is tlie 
aggregate of the opinions of individuals. When 
opinion sliall have become consentaneous, or nearly 
consentaneous, on this head, it will need no pledge 
to enforce the observance of its enactments. The 
gate will open without effort, when tlie sluices have 
filled the lock to the level. The remark of Isaac 
Taylor is true, in the certainty of its conclusion, as 
well as in the vagueness of its period: 

“ It is now within the prospect of the human fa¬ 
mily to constitute, not indeed one political structure, 
but one family, cherishing peace from a sense of in¬ 
terest and a sense of justice, and mutually promot¬ 
ing the advance one of another, as the surest means 
of prospering socially. Intercourse and combination 
must be the ultimate condition of those who are by 
nature capable of society. Insulation and variance 
are unnatural, and must be temporary.’^ 

This is, I repeat, a happy reflection for Irishmen. 
God forbid that we should see the Union repealed! 
That, indeed, would be a step in the wrong direction. 
I consider the new theory of the ultimate “ union of 
races” a complete fallacy, even if it applied to the case 
of these countries. The fact of the natural tendency of 
civilization and intercommunication being to break 
down national clanship, itself overthrows it. No bar¬ 
rier is stronger in savage life than that of race ; no 
division less perceptible, and more in the way, in cul¬ 
tivated communities. Plere, at all events, such a re- 


58 


version is impossible. As the English are mixed up of 
Britons, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, so are the Irish 
a compound of races, some of them separate at the 
time of the English invasion, and some of English 
and Scotch origin; so much so, that in few parts of 
the country does the pure blood now remain, and 
is scarcely ever found in the veins of those who cla¬ 
mour most loudly for its claims. The vast majority 
of the men who cry out for a distinctive nation¬ 
ality founded on race, are either thorough-bred Eng¬ 
lishmen if you go back a few generations, or a 
mongrel breed, in which the wilder part may claim 
a Milesian origin, but the superior portion holds un¬ 
deniable relation to the Saxon. I consider no folly 
more daring or more mischievous than this of at¬ 
tempting to lay at Nature’s door the dissociability of 
jealousy, prej udice, and barbarism. It is a folly akin to 
impiety, for it impliedly contravenes the sacred ora¬ 
cles, which declare the genealogical as well as social 
brotherhood of the whole human race. And besides 
it is unphilosophical. Nobody can assert, as a prin¬ 
ciple, the impossibility of the union of races, who 
does not also assert the impossibility of their com¬ 
mon origin; and the student knows that the whole 
tendency of ethnology, as a modern science, is to 
confirm the popular and scriptural belief on such 
original unity. 

To tear Ireland from England now would be to 
cause a hemorrhage fatal to the very existence of 
both. Who shall undertake to mark off the portions 


59 


to be assigned to each ? What Shylock shall cut 
the pound of flesh from the heart of the Empire ? 
The geographical boundaries have long ceased to 
represent any ethnical ones. Why shoidd they, the 
most arbitrary and obsolete of all, be had recourse to 
to designate the political ones ? You are seven hun¬ 
dred years too late. The imaginary line must now 
pass beneath every house, over every field, through 
every churchyard. It must wind from the remotest 
provinces of the one country to the inmost centre of 
the other, and become entangled in the wheels of in¬ 
stitutions and the ties of families. It is a demarca¬ 
tion which must be disputed inch by inch. To ac¬ 
complish it, you must not only cut through the most 
solid materials, but lacerate the most sensitive. The 
blood which would flow from the bodies of those 
who would have to fight the matter out would be 
nothing compared to that wrung from the hearts of 
the millions implicated in the issue of the strife. 

No ! you cannot wrest Ireland out of the embrace 
of England. Call it tyranny, injustice,—what you 
please,—to hold her fast. You will be wiser some 
day or other, and bitterly repent that you had ever 
tried to promote the separation. 

The Union must be maintained a little longer, by 
all means ,—and then it 'will mamtain itself. 

Scotland, at the beginning of the last century, went 
through stages in some measure analogous to ours ; 
and the case of Scotland was precisely similar to that 
of Ireland ; for it made no difference whatever to 


60 


the Scots, the circumstance that James 1. of England 
had been James VI. of Scotland. What she lost by 
the Union was her “ Domestic Legislature.” That 
and its consequences is what she complained of; and 
such is what the “Repealers” complain of here. She 
was indignant, eloquent,and plausible,just as wehave 
been. One of her orators was highly commended 
when he compared the forced amalgamation (and 
it was forced) to the composition of the toes of the 
image in NebuchadnezzaEs dream, of Avhich the brass 
and clay were joined without uniting, and accord¬ 
ingly broke into pieces with the first violence. 

But Scotland found in time that her real good had 
been promoted by that measure, and that her interest 
lay in maintaining it,—and accordingly she is content. 

So shall we be, by-and-by. 

Some of my readers may remember to have wit¬ 
nessed a remarkable phenomenon in looking down 
from one of the most celebrated fortresses of Ger¬ 
many upon the Rhine, which flows past the foot of 
the cliff on which it is built. 

The river is distinctly divided into three parallel 
streams, of unequal width and of different colours, 
flowing side by side without mingling. In the mid¬ 
dle runs the Rhine itself. On the further side is 
the Moselle, which has just joined the main stream. 
On the near side flows the Lahn, also a tributary, 
though an earlier one, to the parent river. As far 
as the eye can reach they continue distinct, but a 
knowledge of the laws regulating fluid bodies would 


61 


enable the observer, even if he were otherwise ig¬ 
norant, to argue with certainty that this anomaly 
would cease, and that the amalgamation would be 
at last complete. 

In the triple union of these countries the un¬ 
changeable law of civilization points, in like man¬ 
ner, to the ultimate interpenetration of the masses 
of the several populations flowing in the same chan¬ 
nel, that is, equally free under the same government. 

And, as in the case of the river, so in our own, 
the riches borne upon the surface of the waters pro¬ 
mise to be greatest when they have most thoroughly 
combined. 

Agitation for the avowed purpose of separation 
is plugged up for the present. But disaffection is 
oozing out at fresh crannies. And, what is the worst 
of it, it has appeared in quarters from whence it 
ought to have been least expected. I can readily 
understand the growl of disappointed treason. I 
can both comprehend and feel for the complaints of 
suffering classes, whether landlords or peasantry, 
still importunately urged. But that it should be 
asserted by those who once affected to lead the loy¬ 
alty of the country, that the whole of the events of 
the past year are a sort of Titus Oates' conspiracy, 
concocted by the parties which pretended to detect 
it, for interested and corrupt purposes,—and that, 
to give colour to their views, they should interpret 
the acidulated pleasantries of certain witty Irish 


62 


scribes in a London journal into a deliberate spirit 
of malignity towards Ireland in the breasts of the 
British people, is what, I confess, I was not pre¬ 
pared for. 

The latter charge, indeed, is almost too contempti¬ 
ble for notice. That much of what has actually passed 
here lately should provoke a smile upon the face of 
those whose tears were never yet refused to our suf¬ 
ferings, was to be expected. But does this prove 
anything ? You might as well argue from the wood- 
cuts of the celebrated “ Punch” that the Duke of 
Wellington was an object of universal ridicule to the 
British nation. 

But the former calumny is of a graver complexion. 

There is something revolting in the idea of in¬ 
gratitude, either towards God or man. Even under 
reverses, the mind naturally turns with kindness 
to those who have done their best for us. But 
where consummate skill and indomitable energy 
have caused a crisis to pass quietly over which 
might have involved a great empire in ruin,—that 
the very circumstance of immunity from all out¬ 
ward and public disaster should be construed into 
evidence of perfidy and collusion on the part of the 
Government which preserved us, and be made use 
of to bring that Government and those who admi¬ 
nistered it into hatred and contempt, exhibits a 
combination of malignity and infixtuation scarcely 
to be designated by a milder term than madness. 

Menenius belongs neither to that class of men 


G3 


wliich is moored to the politics of a clique, nor to 
that which is drifted about by every current of po¬ 
pular opinion. He has hitherto held himself at 
liberty to think for himself, and has been accord¬ 
ingly exposed to the animadversions successively 
of almost every recognised party. Indilferent to 
the sentence of any tribunal less supreme than that 
of his own conscience, he determined to hold aloof 
at the time when the death of the lamented Earl of 
Besborough had placed our present viceroy at the 
head of affairs in this country, and wait to bestow 
his confidence in an untried functionary, until he 
should have materials whereon to ground his re¬ 
liance. 

Thus reserved, he never lent himself to the pa¬ 
rade of premature adulation got up in honour of the 
Earl of Clarendon, on his first assuming the reins of 
government. 

The same independence enables him now to re¬ 
sist the system of depreciation which it seems the 
fashion to adopt with reference to His Excellency’s 
policy, and fearlessly to commend what he judges 
worthy of commendation. 

Even in his approbation, however, he reserves 
the right to qualify; and, did it come within the 
scope of his present purpose, he would boldly point 
to such passages in the history of this great crisis, 
as, in his humble judgment, are marked by error 
or inadvertence on the part of Government. 

And, in like manner, were an act to be done to- 


64 


morrow, or a word said, calling for reprehension, 
he would, if it fell within the limits of his subject, 
unhesitatingly condemn it. 

Nor is he one atom more afraid of being charged 
with arrogance in thus speaking out, than he is of 
the imputation of partisanship when he defends the 
measures that have been adopted. 

Why do I, an humble individual, presume to 
scrutinize the acts of a personage in the position of 
the Lord Lieutenant? 

Because his public conduct exercises an influence 
over my affairs. In his private capacity, as a British 
nobleman of illustrious name and brilliant talents, 
he is out of my reach, and entitled to protection from 
the prying curiosity of pamphleteers. The only feel¬ 
ing that can exist in my breast towards the Earl of 
Clarendon, as such, is respect. And I deferentially 
refuse to put myself forward either as his supporter, 
of which he has no need, or as his antagonist, in which 
our positions are so unequal. 

But he is Chief Governor of Ireland, and to watch 
his conduct is my right as a free citizen, and my duty 
as an Irishman. I do so, not for his sake, but for 
my own ; not with officious zeal, but from motives 
of self-interest. 

Holding such opinions, I wrote my pamphlets. 

Commencing from the cardinal point—Mitchel’s 
conviction,—conceiving that Avith that event the de¬ 
lusions which had been strengthening with the slow 
accumulations of years might be considered as dissi- 


65 


pated, and the moral atmosphere restored to its 
equilibrium once more,—I set myself from time to 
time in a familiar and unpretending way to point 
out a few of the more important though less observed 
features of passing events,—some of the most gene- 
ral current fallacies of the day; addressing myself 
separately to different classes, in the style I judged 
best suited to the capacities and necessities of each. 
I have never boasted that my object was a lofty one. 
I aimed at no more than this, to induce my country¬ 
men to make the best of their actual condition, and 
relinquish the pursuit of those shadows for which 
they were year after year dropping the substance of 
prosperity. For myself, I always suspect the man 
who talks big about the sublimity of his notions and 
his complete disinterestedness. On the latter head, 
indeed, the guarantee of my sincerity I took care to 
place in the very circumstance that I ims an inter¬ 
ested party, having a common interest with my 
readers. I sought, in a word, to be humbly useful, 
on a small scale, and in a limited degree. 

And now that I have said my say, I lay down my 
pen, never before employed on such a task. The 
urgency of a crisis in which my all was at stake 
drew me forth from a far more congenial retirement. 
To that retirement I gladly return with returning se¬ 
curity ; and pray God that I never again may see 
myself called upon to renounce it. Humble as my 
sphere of action has been, I have however the con¬ 
solation of thinking that many good men have given 

E 


66 


me credit for honesty, and so far corroborated the 
testimony of my own conscience. 

But the year 1848 deserves more than this. Its 
events invite the pen of the Historian. Learning, 
Philosophy, Virtue, and Genius, have here a task 
worthy of them. 

Let no zealous partisan, flippant journalist^ starch¬ 
ed theorist, dry book-worm, undertake it. It will 
master him, as surely as he is unequal to master it. 

In that history, whenever it shall be finally and 
fully written, many names and many acts, now passed 
over by the public eye, will come forward for praise 
and for blame. This, I fear, is too true. But of 
those we are familiar w'ith, one will assuredly stand 
out into increased prominency, and appear more 
conspicuous, the more the mists of the stormy pre¬ 
sent pass from about it. We may slight or under¬ 
value or disregard the genius which influences poli¬ 
tical events, because its operations include ourselves 
in its grasp, and work too close at hand to be appre¬ 
ciably felt; but if ability is to be measured by the 
magnitude of a difficulty and the success with which 
it is surmounted, we cannot refuse to Lord Claren¬ 
don the tribute of our respect. 

I know how ready people are to raise the non est 
tanti cry, and to tell us that he was bound to do all 
he did,—and only did what he was bound to do— 
his duty. 

I admit it. But all good is our duty. Are we 
thence to deny a place within our breasts to grati¬ 
tude ? 


67 


e have been carried through an epidemic which 
has swept olFthe communities of Europe like a pesti¬ 
lence,—carried through without regimen or operation, 
by the sage counsels of an experienced physician. 

I, for one, should be ashamed to deny him the 
honorarium of my thanks. 

And far more warmly do I accord them to him than 
to the conqueror who points to my enemies stretched 
in thousands on the battle-field, and bids me parti¬ 
cipate in his triumph. 

Lord Clarendon has, at all events, the favour of 
his Sovereign to solace him. He has returned to our 
shores, as I am informed, wearing the insignia of the 
most illustrious order of chivalry in the world, earned 
as nobly in peace as knight ever won his spurs in 
war. He may well compound for a little slander, a 
little obloquy, a little calumny, with the star of ho¬ 
nour beaming upon his breast. 

Such it is to be no more than an honest man, an 
ellicient officer, and a loyal subject. I doubt whe¬ 
ther to be the latter does not go far to make a man 
both the former. 

I was brought up in the old school. I am not asham¬ 
ed of my loyalty. The feeling may be out of fashion 
They say it is,—that the prestige of kings is on the 
wane and will die out. I do not think so myself; and 
I have hinted why on a former occasion. But, 
whether or no, I dislike the style of thinking which 
raises the question at all. I hate the endeavour sys¬ 
tematically to break down the ancient tenure by 


68 


homage auncestrel^ existing without the formality of 
indentures between the sovereign and the subject. 
We shall be indeed a nation of shop-keepers when 
such ideas get head amongst us. You will find 
men now-a-days who think it very fine to talk of the 
sovereign as “ the first paid servant of the State.” 
What would they have me do? Transfer my alle¬ 
giance from a person to an abstraction ? from an il¬ 
lustrious line of princes to a steam-engine or a spin- 
ing-jenny? Such people would ask me to call a 
Nelson a hired bravo,—a Mansfield a stipendary ma¬ 
gistrate,—a Pitt an articled clerk. I hold that it is 
from the personal devotion of free men to the exalted 
representatives of power, dignity, and nobility, that 
a nation derives much of its elevation of tone and cha¬ 
racter. It is the want of this that has caused Ame¬ 
rica, with all her resources, to miss of greatness in 
its most exalted sense. She has nothing to look 
up to. 

People say, what is the use of State, with its cum¬ 
brous formalities andburdensome expenses? I reply, 
what is the use of the portico, the dome, the shrine, 
the tower, the temple? Why place the hero’s statue 
on the top of the column, instead of on the earth be¬ 
side us? Why raise the triumphal arch, when we 
might pass as easily through a wicket-gate ? What 
is the use of sculpture, painting, music, poetry? What 
is the use of beauty ? 

If ever there was a case in which the character of 
an individual might uphold the assaulted majesty of 


69 


an office, and keep alive the flagging chivalry of a 
people, it is that of the sovereign of this mighty 
empire. 

I have seen that illustrious personage in the art¬ 
lessness of girlhood, receiving with the condescen¬ 
sion of a native grace the homage of her future sub¬ 
jects, as she moved in her progress through the 
provinces of welcoming England. I have beheld her 
in the bloom and beauty of the bridal season, a queen, 
the object of every eye, the theme of every tongue. 
I have marked her, fresh from the murderous attempt 
of the assassin, passing amongst her subjects with 
the confiding firmness of true heroism, as one who 
trusted in them, in herself, and in her God. And I 
have since heard with emotion the constant story of 
the domestic virtues, of refined, innocent, and intel¬ 
lectual pursuits, of moral and religious propriety, 
shining, like a lamp from a lattice, forth from the 
sacred privacy of her liome, for the guidance and 
encouragement of a great empire. 

And when I heard that a wish had crossed the 
roval heart to visit her Irish dominions,—that broad 
and beautifid country in which my own feelings and 
interests lie alike enshrined,—my heart throbbed, I 
will own, with pride and impatience, to witness the 
mutual greeting of Ireland and its Queen,—tlie hun¬ 
dred thousand welcomes of the land of hospitality 
to the most illustrious guest that had ever approach¬ 
ed its shores. And I hoped that much might have 
been achieved by the confiding act of condescension 


70 


on the one side and the enthusiasm of the occasion 
on the other, to knit the union between my Sove¬ 
reign and my fellow-countrymen. 

In these sanguine hopes I was doomed to disap¬ 
pointment. Other people may deem such matters 
trifles. I confess that it was with shame and con¬ 
fusion of face I perceived the cold response to the 
contemplated honour,—the half-suppressed intima¬ 
tion of possible inhospitality, operating (although I 
could trace them to their obscure and insignificant 
sources) in a way to touch the keenest sensibilities 
of my royal mistress, and discourage her in the ex¬ 
ercise of her gracious intentions. 

As I write, my cheek burns with indignation 
when I think of the brutality that could have me¬ 
ditated such a demonstration, even for a moment. 
Would that I could have flung my cloak, like Ra¬ 
leigh, on the discourteous mire that caused the royal 
foot to hesitate in stepping on the shores of my coun¬ 
try ! But what is past is beyond recall. This was 
the fruit of Agitation. From the first song of the 
Nation to the last whoop of the Felon, all was in 
the same key. The same spirit that animated the 
Ossianic eloquence which some of our sentimental 
drivellers think it becoming still to weep over, only 
developed itself still further in that crowning piece 
of barbarism. 

Indeed, the whole struggle that has been going 
on here during this century may be considered as 
the friction of Progress upon Prejudice. It is the 


71 


savage principle, arrayed in its full romance, blind¬ 
ness, and ferocity, battling for its fastnesses against 
the legions of invading civilization. 

It is defeated—and will be exterminated. I exo¬ 
nerate the peasant who was placed for the time in 
the fore-front of this strife, from much of the blame 
the world will heap upon him. He followed the 
lead, he knew not whither. He had left wretched¬ 
ness and starvation in his cabin behind him,—around 
him he saw his countrymen in masses,—before him 
rose the shouts of ancient war-cries,—above him, he 
was told, smiled the God of battles.’’ Is it in the 
nature of ignorance, credulity, and courage, to with¬ 
stand such incitements? 

Short as is the period that has since elapsed, 
things are changed. With reverse comes reflection. 
Disappointment sobers the judgment. An Irishman 
is no fool, though he is sometimes a madman ; nor 
is he unchivalrous, though he is occasionally uncouth 
and ruffianly enough. Unless I am greatly mistaken, 
he is repentant at all events as regards his Queen. 
I think I see signs of it every day. Awkward and 
uncourtierlike though he may be,—for he is not used 
to courts,—I believe he would, at this hour, do ho¬ 
mage with a not ungraceful humility at the foot of 
the throne. 

It is not for me to constitute myself the ambassa¬ 
dor of my countrymen before that throne. But that if 
indeed our gracious Queen were cordially and con¬ 
fidently to throw herself upon the honour and loyalty 


72 


of Irishmen, and come amongst us, her progress 
through the length and breadth of the land would 
be one long triumphal procession, I feel as confident 
as I do of my existence. Every feeling of my heart 
assures me of the rapturous welcome she would re¬ 
ceive ; every conviction of my mind satisfies me that 
her presence would exalt loyalty from a principle 
into a passion in the breasts of Irishmen ; every trait 
in her Majesty’s character tells me that she would un¬ 
derstand, appreciate, and love us when she came to 
know us in our own land. 


X 


THE END. 





•V V "IT' 


JAN 14- 1902 


*■*' ,' » ’ 'V- ■ ' ' , ,'‘i'. 


f 'l '.. 


<' * • 




• y 

; ■*> 


» '■ 


, / 






H 104 89 

> . V ' • 

\ •* . . • 'i. 













































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































